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Social Influence Flashcards

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1
Q

What is conformity?

A

A change in behaviour as a result of real or imagined group pressure

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2
Q

What are the 3 different types of conformity?

A

Compliance, internalisation and identification

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3
Q

What is compliance?

A

Publicly conforming to the behavior or views of others in a group but privately maintaining your own views (most shallow type of conformity)

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4
Q

What is internalisation?

A

A true change of private views to match those of a group, new beliefs become permanent even when you leave (such as religion)

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5
Q

What is identification?

A

Mixture of both compliance and internalistion. A person wants to be part of a group so adopts the attitudes and behaviours of that group

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6
Q

What are the 2 main explanations of conformity?

A

Normative social influence and informational social influence

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7
Q

Who developed the ideas of normative and informational social influence?

A

Herbert Kelman 1958

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8
Q

What is normative social influence?

A

When a person conforms because they want to fit in. They want to be accepted by the group and seek approval - they may privately disagree

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9
Q

What is informational social influence?

A

A person conforming because they want to be right, they are unsure on how to behave so they follow whoever they think has the right answers

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10
Q

When is informational social influence more likely?

A

In new or ambiguous situations

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11
Q

Who investigated conformity into social roles?

A

Zimbardo

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12
Q

Where was zimbardos research held?

A

Stanford Prison Experiment

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13
Q

What are social roles?

A

Parts that people play as members of various social groups

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14
Q

What did zimbardo want to find out?

A

Whether the change in behaviour was due to the nature of people themselves or is it a consequence of of the situation hypothesis

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15
Q

What was zimbardos aim?

A

To investigate how people conform to roles they are given

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16
Q

What is the dispositional hypothesis?

A

People conform to their roles because of the nature of their personality

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17
Q

What is the situational hypothesis?

A

People conform to their roles because of the situation you are in

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18
Q

How did zimbardo recruit his participants?

A

Local newspaper ad

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19
Q

How many participants did Zimbardo have?

A

24 from US and Canada (eliminated any mental problems and disabilities)

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20
Q

How much were zimbardos participants paid?

A

$15 a day for 2 weeks

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21
Q

How were participants allocated?

A

Randomly

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22
Q

What is dehumanisation?

A

Blind folded, strip searched and given smocks and a prison number (ZIMBARDO)

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23
Q

What did Zimbardo’s guards wear?

A

Mirror shades & khaki outfits

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24
Q

How many days until zimbardo’s prisoners rebelled?

A

2 days

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25
Q

When was zimbardo’s first prisoner released?

A

36 hours - emotional disturbance

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26
Q

How many days did zimbardo’s experiment run for?

A

6 days

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27
Q

How many of zimbardo’s prisoners were released on the 4th day?

A

2

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28
Q

What did Zimbardo conclude?

A

We conform to the roles we are given not because of our natrual personality

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29
Q

What are the strengths of zimbardo’s experiment? (2)

A

Good application - random allocation, uniforms etc

Found out more about the ethical guidelines that we now have to abide by

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30
Q

What are the weaknesses of zimbardo’s experiment? (2)

A 
Ethical criticisms (protection from harm, right to withdraw)
Demand characteristics - they know it was a study
Zimbardo was both prison warden and researcher so may have lost sight of the harm caused LOOSE VALIDITY
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31
Q

What was the aim of milgrams study 1974?

A

To investigate destructive obidence

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32
Q

How did Milgram recruit his participants?

A

Advert in a newspaper - volunteer sample

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33
Q

Who were milgrams participants?

A

40 male Americans aged 20-50

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34
Q

Why was it important that milgrams participants were from different occupations etc?

A

Cancel out any individual differences

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35
Q

What did Milgram do in his experiment?

A

Introduced participants to a confederate who they thought was another participant, shown an electric chair and given a 45v shock to show it worked
Picked teacher or learner, always fixed
Participant had to give a shock for every wrong answer the learner gave (15v to 450v)
Experimenter gave 4 verbal prods

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36
Q

What did Milgram find?

A

100% of participants gave a 300v shock
65% of participants gave a 450v shock
Most participants showed signs of tension
1 participant even had a seizure & experiment had to be stopped

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37
Q

What did milgram’s psychology students predict?

A

Only 3% would go to maximum voltage shock

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38
Q

What did Milgram conclude?

A

Ordinary people are shockingly obedient to those in authority

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39
Q

What ethical guidelines did Milgram break?

A

All except debrief

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40
Q

What are 3 weaknesses of milgrams experiment?

A

Low internal validity - participants may have behaved that way as they didnt believe set up was real
Ethical issues - decpetion, protection from harm, informed consent
Lack generalisability - only men (volunteer sample)

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41
Q

What are 2 advantages of milgrams experiment?

A

Good reliability - ability to control variables

Good external validity - lab experiment reflected wider authoritative figures such as teacher and student

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42
Q

What consent did Milgram claim to have obtained?

A

Presumptive consent (spoke to students before they didnt predict what actually happens)

43
Q

What was milgrams defence to deception, right to withdraw and protection from harm?

A

Deception was necessary to not show demand characteristics
Persuading participants to stay showed power of authority
They did not anticipate the pain caused

44
Q

What were Milgrams 3 variation studies?

A

Location (run down building instead of uni, levels dropped to 47.5%), proximity (in same room as learner & experimenter forced hand on, levels were 40% & 30%), uniform (experimenter called away and levels dropped to 20%)

45
Q

What are the advantages of Milgrams variation studies? (3)

A

Supporting research - Bickman 1974 (3 men in different outfits picking up litter)
Cross-cultural replications (Miranda et al found over 90% of Spanish students found obedience rates NOT LIMITED TO AMERICAN MALES)
Re-done over and over again with approx 1000 participants which increases reliability

46
Q

What is the disadvantage of Milgrams variations studies? (2)

A

Lack of internal validity - Ore and Hollands example was that participants probably wouldnt have believed a member of the public would actually come and take over an experiment
Takes away ownership from a person by saying they were beyond their control (provides an obedience alibi)

47
Q

What are the 3 explanations of obedience?

A

Situational variables
Social Psychological Factors
Dispositional explanation

48
Q

What is social psychological factors?

A

Agentic state and autonomous state

49
Q

What is the agentic state?

A

We are no longer independent but according to instructions from someone else (people justify their behaviour by saying they were ordered to do so)

50
Q

What is the autonomous state?

A

We act according to our own conscience and we feel responsibility for our actions

51
Q

What is the agentic shift?

A

Autonomous state moving to the agentic state when confronted by an authoritative figure

52
Q

What are binding factors?

A

Aspects of the situation that allow a person to minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour

53
Q

Who supported the agentic state?

A

Blass and Schmitt 2001

54
Q

What did Blass and Schmitt find?

A

People who saw Milgram’s study blamed the experimenter indicating they believed participants were just following actions from a person in authority - it could be due to social-psychological rather than the situation

55
Q

What is legitimacy of authority?

A

Societies accepting that certain positions hold authority over the rest of us (teachers/parents)

56
Q

What is the limitation with legitimacy of authority?

A

Some people are granted power to punish others - problems arise when it becomes destructive (Hitler)

57
Q

Where do we learn legitimacy of authority from?

A

Childhood

58
Q

Are there any weaknesses to legitimacy of authority?

A

NO

59
Q

What are the strengths of legitimacy of authority? (2)

A

It is a useful account of cultural differences in obedience
BICKMAN (the security guard got more people to obey as they have legitimate authority in our society)
Legitimate authority was taken away in Milgrams variation studies so obedience levels dropped

60
Q

What is dispositional explanation?

A

Explains obedience in terms of an individuals personality

61
Q

What does the dispositional explanation look at?

A

Authoritarian Personality

62
Q

If you have an authoritarian personality these are some of your characteristics…

A

Extreme respect to authority
Believe in hierarchy
Hostile to those inferior to them
Hold traditional views

63
Q

Who investigated causes of obedient personalities?

A

Adorno et al 1950

64
Q

What did Adorno do?

A

Used questionnaire to asses unconcious attitudes of more than 2000 middle class white americans and their attitudes towards other racial groups

65
Q

What was Adorno’s scale?

A

F-Scale

66
Q

What did Adorno find?

A

Those who scored high on F-Scale were likely to have authoritarian personality as they were concious of their own status

67
Q

Where did Adorno think the origin of authoritarian personality was from?

A

Linked to childhood as a result of harsh/critical parenting which made the child hostile

68
Q

What is a strengths of the dispositional explanation?

A

Research evidence to support - Milgram et Elms 1966 investigated milgrams participants using f-scale, found that those who scored high on f-scale were fully obedient - positive correlation
HOWEVER correlations do not establish a cause and effect so therefore we do not know that authoritarian personality causes high levels of obeidence

69
Q

What is a weakness of the dispositional explanation?

A

It cannot explain all cases of obedient behviour - could not explain all the individual differences in pre-war germany and their behaviour as to why they obeyed

70
Q

What is resistance to social influence?

A

The ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or obey authority

71
Q

What are the 2 explanations for resisting social influence?

A

Locus of control and social support

72
Q

What is locus of control? (obedience)

A

How much a person believes they have control over events that happen in their life, usually measured along a scale with external and internal at either end

73
Q

What is internal locus of control?

A

You believe what happens to you is a consequence of your behaviour

74
Q

What is external control?

A

You believe what happens to you is controlled by external factors and other people (luck and fate)

75
Q

People with an internal locus of control are less likely to obey, why?

A

Because they would feel more responsibility for their actions and seek less approval
THEY ARE LESS SUSPECTIABLE TO NORMATIVE SOCIAL INFLUENCE

76
Q

What is the advantage to locus of control?

A

Research evidence to support link between LOC and resistance to obedience HOLLAND 1967 - repeated milgrams study and measured whether people had high or low LOC
37% of internals did not continue to max voltage compared to 23% of externals

77
Q

What is the disadvantage of locus of control?

A

Research evidence to contradict
TWENGE 2004 - analysed obidence studies over 40 years and found that young americans increasingly believed fate was determined more by luck but also became more resistant to obedience (becoming more external but also internal as they are resisting obedience DOESNT MAKE SENSE)

78
Q

What is social support? (conformity)

A

Helps people resist conformity as pressure to conform can be reduced if others are resisting it too

79
Q

What 2 studies helped support the idea of social support?

A

Asch. One of his variations was to decrease unanimity by having another non-conforming confederate and levels of conformity decreased
Milgram variations. Teacher paired with 2 confederates refusing to obey, levels dropped to 10% but 2 confederates obeying levels increased to 92.5%

80
Q

What is an advantage of social support?

A

Research to support

Allen and Levine 1971 did Asch’s study and a man said he couldn’t see properly but particpiants still went along with it

81
Q

What is a weakness for both informational and normative social influence?

A

Individual differences (cannot explain every situation)

82
Q

What is a minority influence?

A

Refers to the situation where 1 person or a small group of people influence the beliefs and behaviors of others (Nelson Mandela, gay rights activists)

83
Q

What is minority influence most likely to lead to?

A

Internalisation - deepest type of conformity where you really change your views

84
Q

What is the difference between minority and majority influence?

A

Minority influence doesn’t maintain status quo and can bring about social change

85
Q

What was Moscovici’s study 1969?

A

To look at if a consistent minority affects the opinions of a larger group
CALLING A BLUE SLIDE GREEN
4 participants and 2 confederates, 2 groups one where confederates were consistent in either blue/green the other they were inconsistent.
8.42% of p’s in 1st group said green but in incosistent only 1/25% of p’s said green

86
Q

What does Moscovici’s study show?

A

Minorities can change the opinion of the majority, particularly when they are consistent

87
Q

What are the 3 behavioral characteristics of the minority?

A

Consistency, commitment and flexiability

88
Q

Why must the minority be consistent?

A

Must have consistent behavior over time (diachronic consistency) and must be consistent with members (synchronic consistency)
It can make people rethink their own views

89
Q

Why must the minority be committed?

A

As some minorities engage in extreme activities and it needs to demonstrate commitment to the cause

90
Q

What is the augmentation principle?

A

You wont change your views unless you are committed

91
Q

Why must the minority be flexible?

A

To be persuasive, need to be more than just consistent, need to find the balance

92
Q

What is the snowball effect?

A

If you hear something new you may think about it more, especially if the view comes across as passionate. Over time people are converted to the minority position and then it gradually becomes the majorities view

93
Q

What is social cryptoamnesia?

A

People have a memory that change has occurred but dont remember the events that lead to that chnage

94
Q

What is a strength of the minority influence?

A

Wood 1994 carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies to Moscovici’s and found minorities who were consistent were more influential

95
Q

What is a weakness of the minority influence?

A

Artificial tasks -
Findings of the minority influence such as Moscovici lack external validity as they are limited in what they can tell us about real life situations
Social change happens slowly if at all -
Nemeth 1986 argues effects of minority influence are likely to be indirect and delayed

96
Q

What are the 6 steps a minority should adopt to bring about social change?

A 
Drawing attention
consistency
deeper processing
augmentation principle
snowball effect
social cryptoamnesia
97
Q

What can we learn about the lessons from conformity?

A

Asch’s study where when 1 confederate gave correct answers throughout broke power of dissent so could lead to social change

98
Q

What can we learn about the lessons from obedience?

A

Milgrams research demonstrates importance of disobedient role models (obedience levels dropping when confederate refused to give shocks)

99
Q

Why did Diane Mackie 1987 disagree with minority influence?

A

Presents evidence that it is majority influence that creates deeper processing, as we like to believe others share our views and if they don’t we are forced to think about their argument and reasoning

100
Q

What was Asch’s study into conformity?

A

To see whether participants would conform to the majority and give wrong answers when they were obvious. 7 males shown cards with lines, had to say which one matched first individual card out of 3. 6 confederates and 1 participant, confederates gave wrong answers obviously., 50 male college students

101
Q

What did Asch find and conclude?

A

32% conformed always
74% conformed at least once
26% never conformed
Therefore strong group pressure to conform
Different reason for conforming - doubting own interpretation, wanting to fit in

102
Q

What did Asch say increases conformity?

A

Majority of group - up to a certain point stays the same

Task difficulty - answer less obvious

103
Q

What did Asch say decreases conformity?

A

Unanimity - less likely to conform if 1 other person agreed with their own view, they no longer felt alone

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