Social Influence Flashcards
1
Q
What is Conformity?
A
Conformity is a change is a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.
2
Q
What are the different types of conformity?
A
Internalisation
Identification
Compliance
3
Q
Who suggested that there are three ways in which people conform to the opinion of the majority?
A
Herbert kelman
4
Q
What is internalisation?
A
Internalisation is a deep type of conformity where we take on the majority view because we accept it as correct. It leads to a far-reaching and permanent change in behaviour even when the group is absent.
5
Q
What is Identification?
A
A moderate type of conformity where we act in the same way with the group because we value it and want to be part of it. But we don’t necessarily agree with everything the majority believes.
6
Q
What is Compliance?
A
A superficial and temporary type of conformity where we outwardly go along with the majority view, but privately disagree with it. The change in our behaviour only lasts as long as the group is monitoring us.
7
Q
What did Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard say the two main reasons are that people conform?
A
Informational Social influence
Normative social influences
8
Q
What are informational social influence and normative social influence based on?
A
The two central human needs the need to be right and the need to be liked.
9
Q
What is informational social influence?
A
An explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of the majority view because we believe it is correct. We accept it because we want to be correct as well.
10
Q
What could informational social influence lead to?
A
Internalisation
11
Q
What situations are informational social influence likely to occur?
A
New situations (so you don’t know what is right)
Situations with some ambiguity (isn’t clear what is right)
Crisis situations where decisions have to be made quickly
When one person is regarded as being more of an expert
12
Q
Is informational social influence a cognitive process or emotional process?
A
Cognitive because it is to with what you think.
13
Q
What is Normative social influence?
A
An explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we want to be accepted, gain social approval and be liked.
14
Q
What can Normative social influence lead to?
A
Compliance
15
Q
Where is normative social influence likely to occur?
A
Situations with strangers where you may feel concerned about rejection.
May occur with people you know because we are most concerned about the social approval of our friends
More prominent in stressful situations where people have a greater need for social support.
16
Q
What research study supports Informational social influence causing conformity?
A
Lucas et al 2006
17
Q
What was the Lucas et al 2006 study?
A
Lucas et al 2006 asked students to given answers to mathematical problems that were easy or more difficult. There was greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult rather than when they were easier ones.
18
Q
What does the Lucas et al 2006 study tell us?
A
The study shows that people conform in situations where they feel they don’t know the answer, which is exactly the outcome predicted by the Informational social influence explanation.
We look to other people and assume they know better than us and must be right.
19
Q
What are nAfilliators?
A
These are people who have a greater need for affiliation a need for being in a relationship with others.
20
Q
What type of people are less affected by normative social influences?
A
People who are less concerned with being liked and are less affected by normative social influences than nAffilators.
21
Q
What research supports that people high in need of affiliation were more likely to conform?
A
McGhee and Teevan 1967
22
Q
What does McGhee and Teevan 1967 research show?
A
That students high in need of affiliation were more likely to conform.
This shows that the desire to be liked underlies conformity for some people more than others. Therefore there are individual differences in the way people respond.
23
Q
What was Asch’s experiment?
A
Asch conducted one of the most famous laboratory experiments examining conformity. He wanted to examine the extent to which social pressure from a majority, could affect a person to conform
24
Q
What was the findings from Asch’s experiment?
A
The naive participant gave a wrong answer 36.8% of te time. Overall 25% of the participants did not conform on any trials which means that 75% conformed at least once.
25
What is the Asch effect?
The extent to which participants conform even when the situation is unambiguous
26
What does unambiguous mean?
Admitting of no doubt or misunderstanding; having only one meaning or interpretation and leading to only one conclusion
27
What were the three variations Asch did to his experiment?
Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulty
28
What is a confederate?
An actor who participates in a psychological experiment pretending to be a subject but in actuality working for the researcher.
29
What is the group size and how did it affect conformity in Asch's experiment?
Asch increased the size of the group by adding more confederates, thus increasing the size of the majority. Conformity increased with the group size, but only up to a point, leveling of when the majority was greater than three.
30
What is unanimity and how did it affect conformity in Asch's experiment?
The extent to which all the members of a group agree. In Asch's studies, the majority was unanimous when all the confederates selected the same comparison line. This produced the greatest conformity in the naive participants.
31
What is task difficulty and how did it affect conformity in Asch's experiment?
Asch's line judging task is more difficult when it becomes harder to work out the correct answer. Conformity increases because naive participants assume that the majority is more likely to be right.
32
In Asch's experiment when there was an increase in the task difficult and conformity increased because naive participants assume the majority is more likely to be right, what does this suggest?
Informational social influence plays a greater role when the tasks becomes harder. This is because the situation is more ambiguous so we are more likely to look to other people for guidance and to assume that they are right and we are wrong.
33
What is a naive participant?
A participant or subject who has no previous experience of the procedure, or one who is unaware of the purpose of the research or the hypothesis being tested. In research involving confederates, the term is used to denote a participant who is not one of the confederates.
34
What was Perrin and Spencer 1980's experiment?
Perrin and Spencer repeated Asch's original study with engineering students in the UK. Only one student conformed out of 396.
35
How does Perrin and Spencer's experiment make Asch's original research less relevant and limited?
As it could show that in the 1950's were an especially conformist time in America, and therefore it made sense to conform to established social norms. But society has changed a great deal since Asch's experiment and people are possibly less conformist today.
This is a limitation of Asch's research but it means that the Asch effect is not consistent across situations and may not be consistent across time and so is not a fundamental feature of human behaviour.
36
What are limitations of Asch's research?
Only Men were tested in his research, research suggests that women might be more conformist possible because they are more concerned about social relationships and being accepted than men are Neto 1995.
Asch's study were from the United States, an individualist culture, (where people are more concerned about themselves rather than their social group). In collectivist cultures like China where the social group is more important than individuals have found that conformity rates are higher.
This shows that conformity levels are sometimes even higher than Asch found. Asch's findings may only apply to American men because he didn't take gender and cultural differences into account.
37
What are possible Ethical issues with Asch's research?
The naive participants were deceived because they thought the other people involved in the procedure were also genuine participants like themselves.
38
Who ran the Standford prison experiment?
Zimbardo
39
What are Social roles?
Social roles are the parts people play as member of various social groups. Everyday examples include parent, child, student and passenger. These are accompanied by expectations we and others have of what is appropriate behaviour in each role, for example caring.
40
What was the Standford prison experiment?
Zimbardo and his colleagues wanted to find out do prison guards behave brutally because they have sadistic personalities, or is it the situation the crates such behaviour.
41
What was the procedure for the Standford Prison experiment?
Zimbardo set up a mock prison in the basement of a psychology department at Standford University. They advertised for students willing to volunteer those who were deemed 'emotionally stable' after psychological testing.
Students were randomly assigned to roles of guards or prisoners. The social roles of the prisoners were strictly divided, prisoners names were never used just their number.
42
What was happened during the Standford Prison experiment?
Slow start, guards behaviour became a threat to the prisoners' psychological and physical health and the study was stopped after six days instead of 14.
There was prison rebellions, hungry strikes, frequent head counts in the middle of the night,
The guards identified more and more closely with their role. Their behaviour became more brutal and aggressive, with some of them appearing to enjoy the power they had over their prisoners.
43
What was the conclusions from the Standford Prison experiment?
The simulation revealed the power of the situation to influence people's behaviour. Guards, prisoners and researchers all conformed to their roles within the prison.
These roles were very easily taken on by the participants who found themselves behaving as if they were in a prison rather than in a psychological study.
44
What is there to support the findings and back up the Standford prison experiment conducted by Zimbardo?
One strength is that Zimbardo and his colleagues had some control over the variables, such as selecting the most emotionally stable individuals.
This way individual personality differences can be ruled out as an explanation of the findings.
Having such control over variables is a strength because it increases the internal validity of the study. So we can be much more confident in drawing conclusions about the influence of roles on behaviour.
45
What did Banuazizi and Mohavedi say about the Standford Prison experiment?
They said it lacked realism as the participants were merely play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role. Their performances were based on their stereotypes of how prisoners and guards are supposed to behave.
For an example one guard claimed he based his role on the brutal character from the film Cool Hand Luke. This would also explain why the prisoners rioted because they thought that was what real prisoners did.
46
What evidence was there that limited Banuazizi and Mohavedi degrading the Standford Prison experiment?
Zimbardo pointed to evidence that the situation was very real to the participants. Quantitative data gathered during the procedure showed that 90% of the prisoners' conversations were about prison life. On balance it seems the situation was real to the participants which gives the study a high degree of internal validity.
47
What evidence did Fromm have that Zimbardo was exaggerating the power of the situation to influence the behaviour and minimizing the role of personality factors?
A minority of the guards behaved in a brutal manner only about a third. Another third were keen on applying the rules fairly, the rest actively tried to help and support prisoners e.g. giving them cigarettes.
48
What conclusions can we make from Fromms argument about the Standford Prison Experiment?
This suggests that Zimbardo's conclusion that participants were conforming to social roles may be over-stated.
The differences in the guards' behaviour indicate that they were able to exercise right and wrong choices, despite the situational pressures to conform to a role.
49
What did the BBC Prison study show that contradicted the Standford prison experiment?
The BBC prison study findings were very different to Zimbardo, it was the prisoners who eventually took control of the mock prison and mocked the guards the opposite to the Standford Prison experiment.
50
What ethical issues was there with the Standford Prison experiment?
Zimbardo had dual roles in the experiment, as the superintendent and a researcher.
So when a prisoner came to him asking to leave, he responded as the superintendent saying no whereas the if he was playing his role as a researcher whom has responsibilities for the participant the response would have been different.
51
What is Obedience?
A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming.
52
Why did Milgram conduct his obedience study?
Stanley Milgram sought an answer to the question of why the German population had followed the orders of Hitler and slaughtered over 10 million Jews, Gypsies and members of other social groups in the Holocaust.
53
What did Milgram want to find out from his obedience study?
If Germans were different- were they more obedient than other humans.
54
What was the procedure for Milgram's original obedience study?
Milgram recruited 40 male participants through newspaper adverts and flyers, The participants recruited were aged 20-50 and jobs ranged from unskilled to professional. They were offered $4.50 to take part.
When they arrived at Milgrams Lab they were paid and there was a rigged draw for their role. A confederate 'Mr Wallace' always ended up as the learner while the true participant was the 'teacher', there was also an 'experimenter' another confederate dressed in a lab coat.
The learner was strapped in a chair in another room with electrodes, the teacher was required to give the learner an increasing severe electric shock each time the learner made a mistake, the shocks were demonstrated to the teacher.
From now the shocks weren't real, the apparent shock level started at 15 labelled 'slight shock' and rose through 30 levels to 450 volts labelled danger severe shock.
When the teacher got to 300 volts 'intense shock' the learner pounded on the wall and then gave no response to the next question. After the 315 volt shock the learner pounded on the wall again but after that there was no further response from the learner.
When the teacher turned to the experimenter for guidance the experimenter gave a standard instruction 'An absence of response should be treated as a wrong answer'.
If the teacher felt unsure about continuing the experimenter used a four standard prods which were repeated if neceessary:
Prod1: Please continue or Please go on
Prod2: The experiment requires that you continue
Prod3: It is absolutely essential that you continue
Prod4: 'You have no other choice, you must go on'
55
What were the quantitative findings of Milgrams Obedience study (What did the participants do)?
No participants stopped below 300volts
12.5% stopped at 300 volts 'intense shock'
65% continued to the highest level 450 volts.
56
What qualitative data was collected from the Milgrams obedience study?
Observations that the participants showed signs of extreme tension, many of them were seen to sweat, tremble, stutter bite their lips etc.
57
Before the Milgrams obedience study, Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the participants behaviour. What percentage did they predict?
They estimated no more than 3% of the participants would continue to 450 volts.
58
What does the student prediction about Milgrams obedience study tell us about the results of the study?
The results were not expected.
59
What happened to the participants of the Milgrams obedience study after it finished?
All participants were debriefed and assured their behaviour was entirely normal. They were also sent a follow-up questionnaire, 84% reported that they felt glad to have participated.
60
What are several of issues forbid in the Code of Ethics and Conduct?
A participants right to withdraw from the research
The need to get fully informed consent from the participants
The use of deception
The importance of protecting participants from the risk of psychological and physical harm
61
How was Milgram deceptive in his obedience study?
The participants actually believed they were shocking a real person and were unaware the learner was a confederate of Milgram's.
62
What did Milgram say about using deceptive practices?
Milgram argued that “illusion is used when necessary in order to set the stage for the revelation of certain difficult-to-get-at-truths.
63
How did Milgram expose his participants to potential psychological and physical harm?
Participants were exposed to extremely stressful situations that may have the potential to cause psychological harm. Many of the participants were visibly distressed.
Signs of tension included trembling, sweating, stuttering, laughing nervously, biting lips and digging fingernails into palms of hands. Three participants had uncontrollable seizures, and many pleaded to be allowed to stop the experiment.
64
How did Milgram help reduce harm to his participants in his obedience study?
Milgram did debrief the participants fully after the experiment and also followed up after a period of time to ensure that they came to no harm.
Milgram debriefed all his participants straight after the experiment and disclosed the true nature of the experiment. Participants were assured that their behavior was common and Milgram also followed the sample up a year later and found that there were no signs of any long-term psychological harm. In fact, the majority of the participants (83.7%) said that they were pleased that they had participated.
65
In Milgrams Obedience study did he give participants the right to withdraw from the research?
The experimenter gave four verbal prods which mostly discouraged withdrawal from the experiment:
Please continue.
The experiment requires that you continue.
It is absolutely essential that you continue.
You have no other choice, you must go on.
66
How did Milgram argue that he did give participants the right to withdraw?
Milgram argued that his prods are justified as the study was about obedience so orders were necessary. Milgram pointed out that although the right to withdraw was made partially difficult, it was possible as 35% of participants had chosen to withdraw.
67
How does the external validity of Milgram's obedience study, help improve the validity of Milgram's study.
Good external validity in the study, the central feature of the situation was the relationship between the authority figure (the experimenter) and the participant. Milgram argued that the lab environment accurately reflected wider authority relationships in real life. This is supported by Hofling et al 1966 whom studied nurses on a hospital ward and found that levels of obedience to unjustified demands by doctors were high with 21/22 nurses obeying.
This suggests that the process of obedience to authority that occurred in Milgram's lab study can be generalized to other situations, so his findings do have something valuable to tell us about how obedience operates in real life.
68
Who questioned the validity of Milgram's findings and what was their reason for questioning his validity?
Orne and Holland 1968 argued that participants behaved the way they did because they didn't really believe in the set up- they guessed it wasn't real electric shocks. In which case Milgram was not testing what he intended to test, i.e. the study lacked internal validity.
Gina Perry's 2013 recent research confirms this. She listened to tapes of Milgrams participants and reported that many of them expressed their doubts about the shocks.
69
Who supported the internal validity of Milgrams findings?
Sheridan and King 1972 conducted a similar study where real shocks were given to a puppy. Despite the real shocks, 54% of the male student participants and 100% of the females delivered what they thought was a fatal shock.
This suggests that the effects in Milgram's study were genuine because people behaved the same way with real shocks. Milgram himself reported that 70% of the participants said they believed the shocks were genuine.
70
What support replication is there to Milgram's obedience study?
The game of death is a documentary that included a replication of Milgram's study. Participants were paid to give fake electric shocks when ordered by the presenter to other participants who were in fact actors in front of a studio audience.
80% of the participants delivered the maximum shock of 460 volts to an apparently unconscious man. Their behaviour was almost identical to that of Milgram's participants - nervous laughter, nail biting and other signs of anxiety.
This replication supports Milgram's original conclusions about obedience to authority and demonstrates that his findings were not just a one-off change occurrence.
71
What did Diana Baumrind say regarding the ethical issues with the Milgram obedience study?
Baumrind was critical of the ways Milgram deceived his participants. Milgram led participants to believe that the allocation of roles was random, when it was fixed. As well as deceiving participants into thinking the electric shocks were real.
Baumrind objected because she saw deception as a betrayal of the trust that could damage the reputation of psychologists and their research.
72
Who conducted a study that contradicted Hofing et al conclusions?
Rank and Jacobson 1977
73
What did Rank and Jacobson find out from their similar study to Hofling et al's?
They found evidence that contradicts Hofling et al's conclusions about obedient nurses.
They replicated his study but altered some contrived aspects of the original procedure. They made the situation more realistic for example by using a real drug that the nurses would have been familiar with.
In these more realistic circumstances only two out of 18 nurses obeyed the doctor's, which is significantly lower than Hofling et al's results.
74
What are situational variables in the context of Milgram's obedience study?
Milgram identified several factors that he believed influenced the level of obedience shown by participants. They are all related to the external circumstances rather than to the personalities of the people involved.
75
What are the situation variables that Milgram that may create greater or less obedience?
Proximity
Location
Uniform
76
What is Proximity as a situational variable of obedience?
The physical closeness or distance of an authority figure to the person they are giving an order to. Also refers to the physical closeness of the teacher to the victim in Milgram's studies.
77
What is Location as a situational variable of obedience?
The place where an order is issued. The relevant factor that influences obedience is the status or prestige associated with the location.
78
What is Uniform as a situational variable of obedience?
People in positions of authority have a specific outfit that is symbolic of their authority, for example police offers and judges. This indicates to the rest of us who is entitled to expect our obedience.
79
What was the baseline percentage of fully obedient participants at Yale Univerisity in the Milgram obedience study?
65%
80
What happened to the percentage of fully obedient participants in the Milgram's obedience study when there was a change of location to a run down office?
The percentage of obedient participants fell to 47.5%
81
What happened to the percentage of fully obedient participants in the Milgram's obedience study when there was a change putting the Teacher and the learner in the same room?
The percentage of obedient participants fell to 40%
82
What happened to the percentage of fully obedient participants in the Milgram's obedience study when there was a change to making the teacher force the learner's hand onto the electric plate?
The percentage of obedient participants fell to 30%
83
What happened to the percentage of fully obedient participants in the Milgram's obedience study when there was a change making the experimenter give orders by phone?
The percentage of obedient participants fell to 20.5%
84
What happened to the percentage of fully obedient participants in the Milgram's obedience study when there was a change making the experimenter played by a member of public?
The percentage of obedient participants fell to 20%
85
When Milgram changed the location to a run down building of the obedience study what was the effect on the obedience levels?
In such a situation the experimenter had less authority as he wasn't in the prestigious Yale university anymore. As a result of this obedience fell to 47.5%.
This is still quite a higher level of obedience but it is less than the original 65% in the original baseline study.
86
How did Milgram change the Uniform in his obedience study?
In his original baseline study, the experimenter wore a grey lab coat as a symbol of his authority a kind of uniform. Milgram carried out a variation in which the experimenter was called away because of an inconvenient telephone call right at the start of the procedure.
The role of the experimenter was taken over by an 'ordinary member of the public' played by a confederate.
87
What was the results to changing the Uniform of the experimenter?
The obedience rate dropped to 20% the lowest of these variations.
88
How did Milgram change the Proximity in his obedience study?
In the original study the teacher and learner were in adjoining rooms, so the teacher could hear the learner but not see him. In the proximity variation they were in the same room.
89
What happened to the obedience rate in the proximity variation of Milgram's obedience study?
In this condition the obedience rate dropped from the baseline 65% to 40%
90
What research is there by Bickman 1974 that supports Milgram's obedience study that Uniform affects obedience?
Bickman conducted a field experiment in NYC he had three confederates dressed in three outfits, Jacket and tie, milkman's outfit, and a security guard's uniform.
The confederates stood in the street and asked passers-by to perform tasks such as picking up litter or giving the confederate a coin for the parking meter.
People were twice as likely to obey the assistant dressed as a security guard than the one dressed in a jack and tie.
This supports Milgram's conclusion that a uniform coneys the authority of its wearer and is a situational factor likely to produce obedience.
91
What is the lack of internal validity in Milgram's studies and how are they more were they more likely to arise in his variations
Orne and Holland's criticism of Milgram's original study was that many of the participants worked out that the procedure was faked.
It is even more likely that participants in Milgram's variations realised this because of the extra manipulation.
92
What is an example of a lack internal validity in Milgram's obedience studies?
An example is in the variation where the experimenter is replaced by a member of the public. Even Milgram recognised that this situation was so contrived that some participants may have well worked out the truth.
93
How is the lack of internal validity a problem for all Milgram's obedience studies as an accurate and useful psychology study?
This is a limitation for Milgram's study because it is unclear whether the results are genuinely due to the operation of obedience or because the participants saw through the deception and acted accordingly.
94
How does cross cultural replications of Milgram's obedience study and variations of it support and help back up Milgram's conclusions.
A general strength of Milgrams research, that applies to his variations as well is that his findings have been replicated in other other cultures.
The findings of cross-cultural research have been generally supportive of Milgram.
95
Who has conducted cross cultural research that supports Milgram's obedience study and variations?
Miranda et al 1981.
96
What was Miranda et al 1981 study?
It was a study that found an obedience rate of over 90% among Spanish students. This suggests that Milgram's conclusions about obedience are not limited to American males, but valid across cultures and apply to females too.
97
What is a potentially counter to the Miranda et al 1981 study that supports Milgrams obedience study being valid across culture and gender?
Smith and Bond 1998, they said that most replications have taken place in Western developed societies such as Spain and Australia.
These are not culturally different from USA, so it would be premature to conclude that Milgram's findings about proximity, location and uniform apply to people everywhere.
98
Did Milgram control other variables in his variations of his obedience study?
Yes
99
How does controlling other variables when conducting variations a strength to Milgrams study?
A strength to Milgrams study is that he systematically altered one variable at a time to see what effect it would have on the level of obedience.
All other procedures and variables were kept the same as the study was replicated other and other again with more than 1000 participants.
100
Why has Daniel Mandel criticised that proximity, teacher and learner, the location of the study and the presence of uniform are all factors that influence obedience?
Because he believes that is offers an excuse 'alibi' for evil behaviour. In his view, it is offensive to survivors of the Holocaust to suggest that the Nazis were simply obeying orders and were victims themselves of situational factors beyond their control.
101
What is an Agentic state?
A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to being acting for an authority figure, i.e. as their agent.
This frees us from the demands of our consciences and allows us to obey even a destructive authority figure.
102
What is the opposite being in Agentic state?
Autonomous state
103
What does Autonomy mean?
To be independent or free.
104
What is a person in autonomous state?
A person who is free to behave according to their own principles and therefore feels a sense of responsibility for their own actions.
105
What is the shift from autonomous state to agentic state called?
Agentic shift
106
What did Milgram say about when an Agentic shift occurs?
He said this occurs when a person perceives someone else as a figure of authority. The other person has greater power because of their position in a social hierarchy.
107
What is the reason was why individuals remain in a agentic state?
Binding factors.
108
What are the binding factors that keep individuals in agentic states?
Binding factors are aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the moral strain they are feeling.
109
What are some of the strategies that Milgram proposed individuals used when in an Agentic state?
Shifting the responsibility to the victim
| Denying the damage they were doing to the victims.
110
What is Legitmacy of Authority?
An explanation for obedience which suggests we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. This authority is justified by the individuals position of power within a social hierarchy.
111
What is Destructive authority?
When power leaders or people higher in social hierarchy use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes by ordering people to behave in ways that are callous, cruel or stupid.
112
Where was destructive authority used in Milgrams study?
When the experimenter used prods to order participants to behave in ways that went against their consciences.
113
Give examples of destructive leaders?
Stalin
| Hitler
114
What research is there that supports Agentic state?
Blass and Schmitt 2001
115
What research did Blass and Schmitt 2001 conduct that supports Agentic state?
Blass and Schmitt showed a film of Milgram's study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the learner.
The students blamed the experimenter rather than the participant. The students indicated that the responsibility was due to legitimate authority but also due to expert authority (he was a scientist).
In other words they recognised his legitimate authority as the cause of obedience support this explanation.
116
What are the arguments against agentic shift?
It doesn't explain why some of the participants did not obey as humans are social animals and involved in social hierarchies and therefore should all obey.
The agentic shift explanation also does not explain the findings from Hofling et al's study. The agentic shift explanation predicts that, as the nurses handed over responsibility to the doctor, they should have shown levels of anxiety similar to Milgram's participants, as they understood their role in the destructive process. But this was not the case. This suggests at best agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience.
117
What are the arguments in favour of Legitimacy of authority?
Cross cultural research increases the validity of Legitimacy of authority explanation.
118
What cross cultural research has been done that helps increase the validity of the legitimacy of authority explanation?
Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people are traditionally obedient to authority.
For example Kilham and Mann 1974 replicated Milgram's procedure in Australia and found that only 16% of the participants went all the way to the top of the voltage scale.
On the other hand, Mantell 1971 found a very different figure for German participants-85%.
This shows that in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals. These supportive findings from cross cultural research increase the validity of the legitimacy of authority explanation.
119
What is a strength of legitimacy of authority explanation?
It can help to explain how obedience can lead to real-life war crimes. Kelman and Himlton 1989 argue that My Lai massacre can be understood in terms of the power hierarchy of the US army.
120
What is a Authoritarian personality?
A type of personality that Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority. Such individuals are also thought to be submissive to those of higher status and dismissive of inferiors.
121
What are dispositional explanations?
Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individuals personality (their disposition). Such explanations are often are often contrasted with situational explanations.
122
What was Adorno et al?
Adorno et al 1950 investigated the causes of the obedient personality in a study of more than 2000 middle class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards racial groups.
123
How did Adorno, investigate the scale of a persons authoritarian personality?
They developed several scales to investiage this, including the fascism scale (F-scale) which is still used to measure authoritarian personality
.
124
What are examples of items from the F-scale in Adorno et al 1950?
'Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn'
'There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel a great love, gratitude and respect for his parents'
125
What were the findings of Adorno et al 1950?
People with authoritarian leanings (those who scored high on the F-scale and other measures) identified with 'strong people' and were generally contemptuous of the 'weak'.
They were very conscious of their own and other's status showing excessive respect, deference and servility to those of higher status.
It also found that Authoritarian people had a cognitive style where there was no 'fuzziness' between categories of people, with fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other groups.
There was a strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.
126
What did Adorno conclude about the characteristics of a Authoritarian?
Adorno concluded that people with an authoritarian personality have a tendency to be especially obedient to authority.
They have extreme respect for authoirty and submissiveness to it.
Show contempt for people they perceive as having inferior social status, and have highly conventional attitudes towards sex, race and gender.
They view society as 'going to the dogs' and therefore believe we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values such as love of country, religion and family.
People with authoritarian personality are inflexible with their outlook - for them there are no 'grey areas'. Everything is either right or wrong and they are very uncomfortable with uncertainty.
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What did Adorno conclude about the origin of the authoritarian personality?
They concluded that it was formed in childhood, as a result of harsh parenting. Typically the parenting style identified by Adorno features extremely strict discipline, an expectation of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards and severe criticism of perceived failings.
It is also characterised by conditional love, when the parents' love and affection for their child depends entirely on how he or she behaves.
Adorno argued that these experiences create resentment and hostility in the child, but the child cannot express these feelings directly against their parents because of a well-founded fear of reprisals.
This explains a central trait of obedience to higher authority, which is a dislike for people considered to be socially inferior or who belong to other social groups.
This is a psychodynamic explanation.
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What is a psychodynamic explanation?
The idea that our personalities are shaped and motivated by subconscious and conscious forces, with a strong influence from childhood experiences.
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What was Milgram and Alan Elms 1966?
They wanted to see if the obedient participants in Milgram’s research were more likely to display authoritarian personality traits, in comparison to disobedient participants.
Their sample consisted of 20 obedient participants, who administered the full 450 volts and 20 disobedient participants, who refused to continue. Each participant completed several personality questionnaires, including Adorno’s F scale, to measure their level of authoritarian personality. In addition, participants were also asked open-ended questions about their relationship with their parents and their relationship with the experimenter and learner, during Milgram’s experiment.
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What were the findings of Milgram and Alan Elms 1966?
Elms and Milgram found that the obedient participants scored higher on the F scale, in comparison to disobedient participants.
In addition, the results also revealed that obedient participants were less close to their fathers during childhood [all of the participants in Milgram’s original experiment were male] and admired the experimenter in Milgram’s experiment, which was the opposite for disobedient participants.
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What was Milgram and Alan Elms conclusions from Milgram and Alan Elms 1966?
Elms and Milgram concluded that the obedient participants in his original research displayed higher levels of the authoritarian personality, in comparison to disobedient participants.
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Evaluation Milgram and Elms 1966 conclusions.
Although the results of Elms and Milgram suggest a link between authoritarian personality and obedience, these results are correctional and it is therefore difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about the exact cause of the obedience.
In addition, there are many other situational factors that contribute to obedience, including proximity, uniform and location. Therefore, although it is likely that authoritarian personality contributes to obedience, a range of situational variables can affect the level of this contribution.
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Does Milgram's and Elms conclusions support Adorno et al 1950 thinking that the authoritarian personality is the reason for obedience?
Although the results of Elms and Milgram suggest a link between authoritarian personality and obedience, these results are correctional and it is therefore difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about the exact cause of the obedience.
Therefore, although it is likely that authoritarian personality contributes to obedience, a range of situational variables can affect the level of this contribution.
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Explain the argument that there is a limited explanation of Adorno et al's findings.
Any explanation of obedience in terms of individual personality will find it hard to explain obedient behaviour in the majority of a country's population.
For example in pre-war Germany, millions of individuals all displayed obedient, racist and anti Semitic behaviour. This was despite the fact that they must have differed in their personalities in all sorts of ways. It seems extremely unlikely that they could all possess an authoritarian personality.
This is a limitation of Adorno's theory because it is clear that an alternative explanation is much more realistic- that the social identity explains obedience. The majority of the German people identified with the anti-Semitic Nazi state, and scapegoated the 'outgroup' of jews.
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What is the argument that Adorno's F scale measurement has political bias and therefore Adorno's theory is limited?
The F-scale measures the tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology.
Christie and Jahoda 1954 argued that this is politically biased interpretation of authoritarian personality. They point out the reality of left-wing authoritarianism in the shape, for example of Russian Bolshevism.
Both right-wing and left-wing ideologies have much in common they both emphasise the importance of complete obedience to legitimate political authority.
This is a limitation of Adorno's theory because it is not a comprehensive disproportional explanation that can account for obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum.
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How is a limitation of the authoritarian personality explanation that it is based on flawed methodology?
Greenstein 1969 called the F-Scale 'a comedy of methodological errors'. For example, the scale has come into severe criticism because every one of its items is worded in the same 'direction'.
This means it is possible to get a high score for authoritarianism just be ticking the same line of boxes down one side of the page.
People who agree with the items on the F-scale are therefore not necessarily authoritarian but merely 'acquiesces' and the scale is just measuring the tendency to agree to everything.
Additionally Adorno and his colleagues interviewed their participants about their childhood experiences. But the researchers knew the participants test scores, so knew which of them had authoritarian personalities.
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How does the fact that Adorno found correlations any causation's limit his research?
Adorno found many correlations between the range of variables. For example, they found that authoritarianism was strongly correlated with measures of prejudice against minority groups.
However, no matter how strong a correlation between two variables might be, it does not follow that one causes the other. Therefore, Adorno could not claim that a harsh parenting style caused the development of an authoritarian personality.
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What is resistance to social influence?
Refers to the ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or to obey authority. This ability to withstand social pressure is influenced by both situational and dispositional factors.
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What is social support?
The presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey can help others to do the same. These people act as models to show others that resistance to social influence is possible.
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What is an example of when social support has helped people to resist conformity, in Asch's research?
In Asch's experiment when another person not conforming who doesn't have to give the right answer but simply the fact that someone else is not following the majority appears to enable a person to be free to follow their own conscience.
This other person acts as a 'model'
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What is an example of when social support has helped a person resist obedience, in Milgram's study?
In one of Milgram's variations the rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the genuine participant was joined by a disobedient confederate.
The other person's disobedience acts as a 'model' for the participant for the participant to copy that frees him to act from his conscience.
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What is Locus of control?
Refers to the sense we each have about what directs events in our lives. Internals believe they are mostly responsible for what happens to them (internal locus of control). While externals believe it is mainly a matter of luck of other outside forces (External locus of control).
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What is internal locus of control?
People who believe the things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves.
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What is external locus of control?
It is mainly a matter of luck or other outside forces to what happens to them.
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Why do people who have a high internal Locus of control more able to resist pressures to conform or obey?
If a person takes personal responsibility for their actions and experiences then they are more likely to base their decisions on their beliefs and thus resist pressures from others.
Another explanation for the link with greater resistance is that people with high internal locus of needs tend to be more self-confident, more achievement orientated, have higher intelligence and have less need for social approval. These personality traits lead to greater resistance to social influence.
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What research is there supporting that people resistance to conformity when there is social support or dissenters?
Allen and Levine 1971 found that conformity decreased when there was one dissenter in an Asch type study.
More importantly, this occurred even if the dissenter wore thick glasses and said he had difficult with his vision.
This supports the view that resistance is not just motivated by following what someone else says but it enables someone to be free of the pressure from the group.
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What research is there supporting that people resistance obedience when there is social support?
Gamson et al 1982. Found higher levels of resistance in their study than Milgram. This was probably because the participants in Gamson's study were in groups.
In Gamson's study 29 out of 33 groups of participants 88% rebelled. This shows that peer support is linked to greater resistance.
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What research is there supporting locus of control and that internals have greater resistance than externals to authority?
Holland 1967 repeated Milgram's baseline study and measured whether participants were internals or externals. He found that 37% internals did not continue to the highest shock level (i.e. they showed some resistance) whereas only 23% of externals did not continue.
In other words internals showed greater resistance to authority.
This research support of this nature increased the validity of the Locus of control explanation and our confidence that it can explain resistance.
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What contradictory research is there to the link between locus of control and resistance to authority?
Twenge et al 2004 analysed data from American locus control studies over a 40 year period from 1960-2002.
The data showed that over this time span people have become more resistant to obedience but also more external. If resistance were linked to an internal locus of control, we would expect people to have become more internal.
This challenged the link between internal locus of control and increasing resistant behaviour.
However, it is possible that the results are due to a changing society where many things are out of personal control
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What is minority influence?
A form of social influence in which a minority of people sometimes just one person persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours.
Leads to internalisation or conversion, in which private attitudes are changed as well as public behaviours.
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What is internalisation?
Internalisation is both an outward and an inward behaviour in which a person adopts the viewpoints and attitudes of a group and makes them their own.
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What is Consistency in the context of minority influence?
Minority influence is most effective if the minority keeps the same beliefs, both over time and between all the individuals that form the minority. It's effective because it draws attention to the minority view.
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What is synchronic consistency?
All the people in the minority have been saying the same thing.
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What is diachronic consistency?
People have all been saying the same thing for some time now.
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What is Commitment in the context of Minority influence?
Commitment can cause the minority influence to become more powerful if the minority demonstrates dedication to their position, for example by making personal sacrifices.
This is effecting because it shows the minority is not acting out of self interest.
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What is Flexibility in the context of Minority influence?
Relentless consistency could be counter productive if it seen by the majority as unbending and unreasonable.
Therefore minority influence is more effective if the minority show flexibility by accepting the possibility of compromise.
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What are the 3 factors affecting the success of Minority influence?
Consistency
Commitment
Flexibility
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What did Nemeth 1986 argue why Consistency isn't the most important factor in minority influence?
Nemeth 1986 argued that consistency is not the only important factor in minority influence because it can be interpreted negatively. Being extremely consistent and repeating the same arguments and behaviours again and again can be seen as rigid, unbending, dogmatic and inflexible.
This is off-putting to the majority and unlikely to result in any conversions to the minority position.
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What was Moscovici et al 1969?
A study that demonstrated minority influence.
In the study a group of six people where asked to view a set of 36 blue colored slides that varied in intensity and then state whether the slides were blue or green.
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What was the results of the Moscovici et al 1969 when there was two confederates who consistently said the slides were green on two thirds of the trials?
The participants gave the same wrong answer on 8.42% of trials, 32% gave the same answer as the minority on at least one trial.
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On a second group at Moscovici et al 1969 participants was exposed to a inconsistent minority what was the result on the agreement with the confederates?
The agreement with the minority fell to 1.25%
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On a third group at the Moscovici et al 1969 there was no confederates and all participants, what was the effect on the accuracy of identifying the color?
The participants only got the identification process wrong on just 0.25% of the trials.
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What research is there supporting that consistency is a major factor in minority influence?
Moscovici et al study showed that a minority opinion had a greater effect on other people than an inconsistent opinion.
Wood et al 1994 carried out meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential.
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What was Martin et al's research that supports the process of Minority influence?
Martin et al found that people were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group rather than if they were shared with a majority group.
This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect, supporting the central argument about how minority influence process works.
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Explain how a limitation of the minority influence research is that the tasks involved such as identifying the colour of a slide are Artificial.
The research is therefore far removed from how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life. In cases such as jury decision making and political campaigning, the outcomes are vastly more important.
This means findings of minority influence such as Moscovici et al are lacking in external validity and are limited in what they can tell us about how minority influence works in real-life social situations.`
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In Moscovici blue green slide study how did agreement with the minority change when the answers were asked to be written down so other participants couldn't see their answers?
Surprisingly private agreement with the minority position was greater in these circumstances. It appears that members of the majority were being convinced by the minority's argument and changing their own views but were reluctant to admit this in public due to fear of being considered 'radical' or 'awkward'.
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How is the fact that real-life social influence situations are much more complicated than research studies on the minority view a significant limitation?
There is more involved in the difference between a minority and a majority than just numbers.
For example, majorities usually have a lot more power and status than minorities. While in the studies that support minority influence this is not there.
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What is social influence?
The process by which individuals and groups change each other's attitudes and behaviours.
Includes conformity, obedience and minority influence.
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What is social change?
This occurs when societies rather than just individuals, adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things.
Examples include accepting that the Earth orbits the sun, women's suffrage, gay rights and environmental issues.
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Give an example of how Social change has been caused by minority influence?
African American Civil rights movement of 1950's and 60's.
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How did minority influence cause social change in African American Civil rights movement in the 1950's/60s?
Drawing attention- The civil right marches of this period draw attention to the situation by providing social proof of the separation applied to parts of America.
Consistency-There were many marches and many people taking part, the civil rights activists displayed consistency of message and intent.
Deeper processing- The attention meant that many people who had simply accepted the status quo began to think about the unjustness of it.
The augmentation principle-There was a number of incidents where individual risked their lives e.g. freedom rides. Many freedom riders were beaten and there were incidents of mob violence.
The snowball effect-Civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King continued to press for changes that gradually got the attention of the US government causing the 1964 US Civil Rights Act to be passed.
Social Cryptomnesia- There is no doubt that social change did come about and the south is quite a different place now but some people have no memory of the events above that led to that change.
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What are the six steps in the Civil rights movement that caused social change?
Drawing attention
Consistency
Deeper processing
Augmentation principle
Snowball effect
Social cryptomensia
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What is social cryptomnesia?
People have a memory that change occurred but don't remember how it happened.
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How do Environmental and health campaigns increasingly exploit conformity processes by appealing to the normative social influence?
They do this by providing information about what other people are doing.
An example is reducing litter by printing normative messaged on litter bins "Bin it - others do".
In other words social change is encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority are actually doing.
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What did Zimbardo 2007 suggest how obedience can be used to create social change?
He suggested through the process of gradual commitment. Once a small instruction is obeyed it becomes much more difficult to resist a bigger one. People essentially drift into a new kind of behaviour.
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What research is there supporting that conformity can lead to social change through the operation of normative social influence?
Nolan et al 2008 investigated whether social influence processes led to a reduction in energy consumption in a community.
They hung messages on the front of doors in San Diego, California every week for one month.
The message was that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage. As a control, some residents had a different message that just asked them to save energy but made no reference to other people's behaviour.
Nolan et al found significant decrease in energy usage in the first group.
This is a strength because it shows that conformity can lead to social change through the operation of normative social influence.
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What is the argument that minority influence is only indirectly effective at causing social change?
Charlan Nemeth 1986 argues that the effects of minority influence are likely to be mostly indirect and delayed.
They are indirect because the majority is influenced on matters only related to the issue at hand, and not the central issue itself. They are delayed because the effects may not be seen for some time.
This could be a limitation of using minority influence to explain social change because it shows that its effects are fragile and its role in social influence is limited.
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