Social Influence Flashcards
Evaluate normative and informational social influence
+ for normative influence:
Linkenbach and Perkins - smoking
Shultz et al. - towels
+ for informational influence:
Wittenbrink and Henley - -ve info about black Americans (lead to believe was view of majority) lead to more -ve beliefs about a black individual
Fein et al. - us presidential debates, shown reaction of ‘fellow ppt’ which produced a large shift in ppt’s judgements of the candidates performances.
Normative influence is hard to detect- Nolan et al. Ppl underestimated influence of neighbours on energy conservation yet it had the strongest impact.
Information s.i. Is moderated by type of task. More impactful on social not physical (factual) tasks. E.g. Most fun city vs most populated.
Evaluation of Asch
‘Child of it’s time’ - McCarthyism. Perrin + Spencer repeated Asch’s study using science and engineering students. Only found 1 conforming response out of 396. Then did another study using youths on probation as ppts and probation officers as confederates and found similar levels of conformity as Asch found. Concluded conformity more likely when the perceived consequences of not conforming are high.
Independent behaviour shown- 2/3 of ppts stuck to original view when majority said otherwise so may actually show power of independent behaviour.
Unconvincing confederates- Mori and Arai polarising lens.
Evaluating Zimbardo (conformity to social roles)
Ethics? - protection from harm, right to withdraw etc. Zimbardo adknowledged it should have perhaps been stopped earlier due to the emotional distress caused. However did do follow up debriefing sessions for several years afterwards to ensure there was no long lasting effects.
Demand characteristics - Banuazizi and Movahedi. Said ppts behaviour was due to demand characteristics. Presented details of study to students who had never heard of the study and the vast majority guessed the aim and predicted the outcome. Also zimbardo was acting as the prison superintendent himself.
Abu Ghraib (RWA) - zimbardo argued situational factors were more important than dispositional. E.g. Lack of training, boredom and no accountability to a higher authority.
Conformity to roles not automatic- there were some nice guards who helped the prisoners and did not harass them. This leads some to believe guards chose how to act rather than blindly conform.
Evaluating Milgram (situational variables affecting obedience)
Internal validity- Orne and Holland claimed ppts have learnt to distrust experimenters, as they know the true purpose of the study is often disguised. Perry discovered many of the ppts had been sceptical at the time whether the shocks were real. However this was 2012 so a long time after Milgram’s study (1963).
Gender- Milgram did another condition with females and found the same rates of obedience, but reported higher self reported tension. Blass studied 9 other replications of Milgram’s study which used both men and women and also found no evidence of gender differences.
Historical validity- Blass did a statistical analysis of Milgram obedience studies and found no change in results over time. Burger (2009) also found levels of obedience almost identical to those found by Milgram, so his findings still appear to apply as much today as they did in the early 60s.
Ethics- right to withdraw (persistent cues), also paid to take part in study so may feel obligated to ‘fulfil’ their contract.
Evaluation of explanations of obedience
Agentic state vs real life - Lifton found German doctors at Auschwitz had changed from ordinary medical professionals, concerned with their patients welfare to capable of carrying out vile, potentially lethal experiments on helpless prisoners. Staub suggests rather than agentic state it may be the experience of carrying out evil acts over a long period of time that changes the way individuals think and behave.
Agentic state or just cruel - Zimbardo and Milgram may have detected signs of cruelty among their ppts, who used the situation to express their sadistic impulses. This would explain why some guards in the SPE were nice to the prisoners, and did them favours compared to others who humiliated and tortured them.
The agentic state as a loss of personal control - Fennis et al. Believe that agentic state is not just confined to obedience but may explain other social influence as the person feels less control so has an increased acceptance of external sources of control to compensate.
Obedience in the cockpit- Tarnow provided research support for legitimacy of authority through a study of aviation accidents. He did a review of serious aircraft accidents in the US where a black box was available and where flight crew where a contributing factor in the crash. Tarnow found an excessive dependence on the captains authority and expertise, one second officer even said the captains approach was a very risky one but he didn’t question him as he must know what he is doing.
The authoritarian personality evaluation
Research support- Elms and Milgram, Altmeyer etc.
Social context may be more imp. - Milgram believed that although dispositional factors may be a basis to obedience, situational factors were far more important. E.g. Variations of his study, authoritarian personality cannot explain these by itself.
Individual differences- not all those that were obedient in Milgram’s study had a harsh upbringing and were authoritarian so there may be other disposition all or situational factors.
Education- research has found that less educated ppl are consistently more authoritarian than the well educated. Milgram also found that those less educated were more obedient than those with higher levels of education.
Resistance to social influence evaluation
Social support: the response order - Allen and Levine found that response order can influence social support. E.g. Support significantly more effective in position 1 than position 4.
Support may not have to be valid to be effective - Allen and Levine found that a valid social support had more impact, but the invalid also had an impact reducing conformity showing an ally is helpful resisting conformity but more so if they are perceived as valid. E.g. Visual task, condition 1 very thick glasses, condition 2 confederate with perfect vision.
LofC: related to normative not informational influence. - Spector found a significant correlation between LofC and predisposition to normative SI., with externals more likely to conform than internals. However there was no such relationship with informational SI.
LofC: ppl are more external than they used to be- Twenge et al. meta-analysis found young Americans increasingly believe that their fate is determined by luck and powerful others rather than their own actions.
RWA: social support- Rossenstrasse protest. Women refused to move and give up their husbands and sons who were Jews, even though threatened by the gestapo. Their courage eventually prevailed and the Jews were set free.
Minority influence evaluation
Research + for flexibility - Nemeth and Brilmayer studied the role of Flexibility in a jury situation where the group were discussing the amount of compensation someone in a ski lift accident should get. When a conf. put forward an alternative point of view and refuse to change his position it had no effect on the other jury members. However a conf. who compromised and showed flexibility did exert influence on the rest of the group.
Value of minority influence:
Nemeth the believed that dissent,in form of minority opinion, opens the mind and causes ppl to make better decisions and be more creative. Dissenters liberate ppl to say what they believe and they stimulate divergent and creative force even when they are wrong.
Tipping point for commitment- Xie et al. discovered a tipping point where the number of ppl holding a minority position is sufficient to change majority position. This point was usually around 10%.
Minority influence may not work - Nemeth argued it is still difficult to convince ppl of the value of dissent, and ppl don’t want to be marginalised by ridicule by associating with a deviant point of view. So the majority view persists and the innovative thinking associated with minority influence are lost.
Social change evaluation
Minority influence social change is v gradual- the influence of a minority is often more latent than direct, so it creates the potential for change rather than actual social change.
Being perceived as deviant limits the influence of minorities
Not all social norm interventions lead to change, Dejong et al. Studied advertising aimed to lower alcohol consumption and it showed no change after the campaign or up to 3 years later.
Boomerang effect with social norms intervention - Schultz et al. Energy consumption.
