Social Influence Flashcards
TYPES OF CONFORMITY: What is Compliance
This is when a person will agree with a group in public, but they privately disagree with the group. E.g, someone may laugh at a joke because their friends are, but privately do not find it funny.
TYPES OF CONFORMITY: What is Internalisation
This is when an individual will agree in public and in private. This is the deepest level of conformity as conversion has happened with a particular belief
TYPES OF CONFORMITY: What is Identification
This is when an individual will agree in public to be socially approved. They might agree privately for a time but it is TEMPORARY.
What are the two main explanations for conformity?
Normative social influence(NSI) and Informational social influence. (ISI)
What is NSI and give example
Normative social influence is when we conform to fit in with a group because we wish to gain the approval of others and would not want to feel foolish or be left out. An example would be peer pressure and smoking,
What is ISI and give example
Informational social influence is when you have the desire to be right in a situation we may be unsure of so we look to the ones we believe have more information for guidance
For example, watching your colleagues at when they take lunch so you can follow as it is a new job.
Explain Asch’s Line Task..
Asch wanted to see whether people would conform to the majority when an answer was obvious.
The group with 1 true participant and 6 confederates were presented with a line and 3 comparison lines.. all DIFFERENT LENGTHS.
They had to say ALOUD which comparison line matched the main line lengths.
The confederates were told to give the incorrect answer on 12 out of the 18 trials.
* True participants conformed on 32% of the trials where confederates gave the wrong answers
*75% conformed to the majority on at least one of the trials.
Evaluation of Asch:
Lab experiment so cause and effect can be established due to the lack of extraneous variables
Lacks population validity as they were conforming to a group of strangers and cannot be applied to everyday conformity which is usually with friends and other people we know
Gender beta bias as the study was only carried out on men and therefore the results may not apply to females so the study lacks population validity
Although it was minor and probably non-lasting, the participants were put under a stressful situation which may have been psychological discomforting
What are asch’s 3 variations?
Group size
Non-conforming role model
Difficultly of the task
Asch’s variation: Group size.
The bigger the confederate group, the more the participants conformed, but only till a certain point.
With one other confederate the group conformity was 3%, with two it was 13%, and with 3 or more it was 32%.
Asch’s variation: Non-conforming Role model.
Ash broke up the agreement of the group by introducing a non-conforming confederate. One confederate that goes against the majority can reduce conformity as much as 80%. The absence of total agreement from the group lowers overall conformity as participant feels less need for social approval(NSI)
Asch’s variation: Difficulty of task.
When the lines were more similar, it was harder to judge the correct answer. The more difficult the task, the more conformity increased.
Explain Zimbardo’s study of conforming to social roles.
His aim was to investigate how people would conform to social roles.
He advertised for students at his uni to play the role of prisoner or guard
Prisoners were issued a uniform and referred to by ID numbers only. Guards were given uniform with handcuffs and dark glasses so no eye contact.
Within hours, some guards began to harass prisoners and guards became way more violent.
One prisoner had to be released after 36 hours and they were all left with signs of an emotional disorder.
On the sixth day it was terminated.
Evaluation of Zimbardo study.
Demand characteristics as the guards and prisoners knew they were playing a role so their behaviour may not be influenced by the same factors which affect behaviour in real life so the study has low ecological validity
The study may also lack population validity as the sample only comprised US male students
Lack of fully informed consent by participants due the fact it was an unpredictable experiment - however they did all sign an extensive agreement.
Not protected from psychological harm as they experienced extreme distress
Observer bias as Zimbardo (he played prison superintendent) admitted after he got too involved which is seen in his delay to terminate the experiment, even after there was violence.
Explain Milgram’s study for Obedience.
AIM: how far could people go in obeying an instruction even if it involved harming another person.
A participant and confederate would draw to determine whether they were the learner or teacher. This was fixed so the confederate was always the learner
The “learner” was strapped to a chair with electrodes and he had to learn a list of word pair and the “teacher” tests him by naming a word and the learner recalls its pair
The teacher is told to give an electric shock every time the learner makes a mistake and the level of shock increases each time
The learner gave mainly wrong answers on purpose so the teacher had to shock
If the teacher refused to give a shock the experimenter was to give a series of prods
E.g. Please continue, The experiment requires you to continue
All the participants continued to 300 volts, 65% of participants continued to the highest level of 450 volts (***)
