Social Influence -

Question 1

What is conformity?

Answer 1

A type of social influence involving a change in belief or behavior in order to fit in with a group.

Question 2

What are the 2 explanations for conformity?

Answer 2

Normative social influence - the desire to be liked (conform to fit in with a group).
Informational social influence - the desire to be right (conform as we are unsure of situation so we look to others who we believe may have more information than us).

Question 3

What are the 3 types of conformity?

Answer 3

Compliance - Group acceptance (agreeing with majority externally even if we don’t internally)
Identification - Group membership (conforming to what is expected of them).
Internalisation - acceptance of group norms (actually agreeing with views of people who influenced them, internally and externally).

Question 4

What is Asch’s (1951) study?

What were his findings?

Answer 4

Experiment (lab) to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.
Naive participant in a room with 7 confederates who deliberately gave wrong answers to the LINE JUDGEMENT TASK to see if participant would conform. Answer was always obvious.
FINDINGS - 32% of participants in each trial conformed.
75% conformed on at least one trial.

Question 5

Evaluation of Asch’s study?

Answer 5

• Lacks ecological validity (due to lab experiment, artificial task)
• Lacks population validity (Due to only American males being tested)
• Dated (child of its time) - Perrin and Spencer 1980s found only 1 out of 365 trails conformed.
• Unethical (deception, informed consent, right to withdraw)

Question 6

What are variations of Asch’s study?

Answer 6

Size of group (conformity increases as group size increases but not above 4/5. 4/5 is optimal group size).
Non - conforming role model (conformity reduced by 80%).
Difficulty of task (more difficult task, greater conformity).
Giving answers in private (conformity dropped).

Question 7

What is Zimbardo’s research?

Answer 7

STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT(conformity to role)
Mock prison with students randomly assigned guards or prisoners.
FINDINGS - Guards became brutal, prisoners withdrawn, depressed and even has psychological disturbance. Study had to be stopped after 6 days instead of intended 14. PARTICIPANTS CONFORMED TO ROLES.

Question 8

Evaluation of Zimbardo’s research?

Answer 8

+ High internal validity
+ Real - world application (changed prisons)

• Lack of realism (participants acting on stereotypes)
• Dispositional influences (only 1/3 of guards brutal, conclusions exaggerated).
• Ethical issues (informed consent, psychological harm)

Question 9

What is obedience?

Answer 9

When a person follows a direct order, usually from a person in authority.

Question 10

What is a real life example of obedience?

Answer 10

The Mai Lai Massacre

Abu Ghraib

Question 11

What is Milgrams study on obedience (1974)?

Answer 11

Are Germans different?
PROCEDURE - Participants (teacher) gave fake electric shocks to a confederate learner from 15 volts to 450 volts, (severe shock, can cause death) from instructions from experimenter (participant thinks real, shock when ‘learner’ gets question wrong.) . Confederate protests at 180 volts and then goes silent at 300 volts.
FINDINGS - 65% gave highest shock (prediction of 2%)
100% up to 300 volts.
Many showed anxiety.

Question 12

Evaluation of Milgrams study?

Answer 12

+ High internal validity (70% thought shocks were real)
+ Research support (Hoflings nurses, 21 out of 22 obedient to authority).

• Unethical (deception, informed consent, right to withdraw, distress).
• Low population validity (only American males).

Question 13

Variations of Milgrams study - situational variables?

Answer 13

Proximity (teacher and learner in same room, obedience dropped to 40%)
Location (moved to run down office building, obedience dropped to 47.5%)
Uniform (member of public experimenter,obedience dropped to 20%)
Support (disobeying confederate with participant, obedience dropped to 10%).

Question 14

What are the social explanations for obedience?

Examples?

Answer 14

• Legitimate authority - person we are more likely to obey as they have more authority over us.
  Bickman, people more likely to obey person in guard uniform than someone in normal clothes.
• Agentic state - acting for person in authority so we feel no person responsibility e.g. Blass and Schmitt support
• Gradual commitment - Agreeing to fairly reasonable request so goes slightly higher and slightly higher.
  Milgram shocks support.
• Buffers - anything to stop us seeing consequences of our actions e.g. Milgram, wall between learner and teacher.

Question 15

What is the dispositional explanation for obedience?

Examples?

Answer 15

Authoritarian personality - personality which is especially respectful towards authority figures and obedient. They have strong negative feelings to minority groups. Thought to be from strict parenting. (Adorno measured this on f - scale).
e.g. Some of Milgrams participants had authoritarian personality (Elms).

Question 16

What 3 explanations for resisting pressures to conform?

Answer 16

• giving answers in private - when participants could give answers in private, conformity dropped.
• non - conforming role model - when there was someone else who didn’t conform, conformity dropped as much as 80%.
• size of group - conformity increases as size of group increases.

Question 17

What are 3 explanations for resisting pressure to obey?

Answer 17

• disobedient role model - another person who is disobedient, you are more likely to do the same (90%).
• status and legitimacy of person giving order - lower status person, obedience dropped (17%).
• increasing sense of responsibility - those with strong moral principles are less likely to obey (Martin - Luther King).

Question 18

What is locus of control?

Answer 18

How much a person feels an event is their fault or not. (Rotter)
- internal - blames self
- external - blames others
THOSE WITH INTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL ARE MORE LIKELY TO RESIT SOCIAL PRESSURES.

Question 19

Evaluation of locus of control?

Answer 19

+ research support - Blass (1991), meta analysis of variations of Milgram’s study; those with internal locus of control were more likely to act independently.

• hard for LOC to fully explain resistance.

Question 20

What is social change?

Answer 20

When society adopts a new belief or way of believing that then becomes widely accepted as the norm.

Question 21

What is independent behaviour?

Answer 21

Refers to ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform or obey to authority.

Question 22

What are some real life examples of social change?

Answer 22

• attitudes to homosexuality - illegal until 1967, 2014 same sex marriage.
• black rights - Rosa Parks and bus boycott.
• women’s vote - no vote law 1832, women get vote in 1918.

Question 23

What is a key study linking to behaviours of minority to get change?

Answer 23

Moscovici (1969) blue/green slides.
Looks at how consistent minority affect opinions of larger group.
4 P’s and 2 confederates and were shown 36 slides of different shades of blue and asked to state colour allowed. There were 2 groups:
- group 1: confederates consistent and answered green every slide.
- group 2: confederates inconsistent and answered green 24 times and blue 12 times.
FINDINGS - consistent group - 8.42% trials P’s answered green, 32% at least once.
inconsistent group - 1.25% of trials P’s answered green.
THEREFORE, MINORITIES CAN CHANGE OPINION OF MAJORITY IS THEY STAY CONSISTENT.

Question 24

What are the behavioural characteristics of the minority?

Answer 24

• consistent - not changing mind and staying consistent.
• commitment - breaking law (suffragettes, one killed self in horse race for cause).
• flexibility - working around major events (suffragettes held campaign to help with war effort).

Question 25

How does minority become majority?

Answer 25

snowball effect (Van Avermaet 1996)

gradual: starts slow and gain momentum and gets bigger.
e. g. womens vote - 1900, small number of women - 1910, number increases - 1918, law changed - 2017, women having vote is majority view.
- – minority becomes majority, people feel pressure to conform to majority opinion. The government eventually introduces new laws which people must obey.

Question 26

What is social cryptoamnesia?

Answer 26

When you forget about the minority which made the change.