Social influence

Question 1

Who conducted a study of conformity

Answer 1

Solomon Asch (1955)

Question 2

What study did Solomon Asch conduct

Answer 2

Conformity

Question 3

Asch (1955) study of conformity: aim, method, results, conclusion

Answer 3

Ash study of conformity:

Aim: To investigate group pressure in an unambiguous situation.

Method: 123 American men.
Two cards, standard line and three comparison lines.
12 critical trials where confederate gave the wrong answer.

Results:
On critical trials participants gave the wrong answer 1/3 of the time.
25% of participants never gave the wrong answer.

Conclusion:
People are influenced by group pressure
Many people can resist.

Question 4

Asch conformity study, evaluation

Answer 4

Asch conformity study, evaluation:

• Only reflective of conformity in 1950’s America. Much less conformity in a 1980’s study (perrin and Spencer)
• Artifical task. trivial and involved strangers so not true to life.
• Cultural difference, in collectivist cultures results are higher (Bond and Smith)

Question 5

Conformity: Social factors, resuls affect of group size and one evaluation

Answer 5

Conformity / social factors, Group size:
Two confederates = 13.6% conformity,
Three confederates = 31.8% conformity
no further difference with increase in confederates.

Evaluation: Depends on task, if the is no obvious answer the no conformity until group is >8 people.

Question 6

Conformity, social factors, Anonymity effect and evaluation

Answer 6

Conformity, social factors, Anonymity:

When writting an answer down is anonymous the conformity is lower.

Evaluation: Strangers versus friends, If participants are friends and opinions are anonymous then conformity is higher.

Question 7

Conformity, social factors: Task difficulty, effect and evaluation

Answer 7

Conformity, social factors, Task difficulty.
For the Asch study, if comparison lines more similar to the standard, this makes the task harder and conformity is higher:

Evaluation: If participants have more task specific expertise then conformity is less affected by a difficult task.

Question 8

Conformity, name two dispositional factors and what difference they make and evaluation each.

Answer 8

Conformity, two dispositional factors are:

1. Personality: People with high locus of control are less likely to conform. Burger and Cooper rating of a cartoon.
   Evaluation: Control is less important in familar situations.
2. Expertise: More knowledeable people conform less. Lucas, maths experts and a maths question.
   Evaluation: No single factor, maths experts may conform with stranger in order to be liked.

Question 9

Who did a study on obedience

Answer 9

Stanley Milgram

Question 10

What study did Stanley Milgram do

Answer 10

Stanley Milgram undertook a study of obedience.

Question 11

Stanley Milgram, Obedience study, aim, method, results, conclusion

Answer 11

Stanley Milgram obedience study:

Aim: To investigate if Germans are different in terms of obedience.

Method: 40 male volunteers
Had to act as a teacher and give electric shocks to the learner if they got the answer wrong.
Range of shocks upto 450vol with labels

Result:
No participant stopped below 300v
65% shocked to 450v
Participants very distressed, three had seizures.

Conclusion:
Obedience had little to do with dispositional factors but could be explained by the situation of the study

Question 12

Milgram obedience study, evaluation

Answer 12

Milgram obedience study, evaluation:

• lacked realism, participants may not of believed the shocks were real (Perry)

+ Supported by other research: Sheridan and King found 100% of females followed orders to give a fatal shock to a puppy.

• Ethical issues, participants distressed and caused psychological harm. Such research brings psychology into disrepute.

Question 13

Milgram’s Agency Theory: What is it, the two types of agency state, what is agentic shift, what is social hierachy and the affect of proximity.

Answer 13

Milgram’s agency theory: An explanation of power of other people as a social factor to obedience and conformity.

1. Agency:
   Agentic state: follow orders with no responsibility.
   Autonomous state: own free choice.
2. Authority, agentic shift, moving from making own choice to following those of someone deemed in authority.
3. Culture - Social hierachy. Some people have more authority than others. Heirachy depends on society and socialisation.
4. Proximity, Participants in Milgram’s obedience study conformed less when the learner was in the same room “moral strain”.

Question 14

Milgram’s agency theory, evaluation

Answer 14

Milgrams ageny theory, evaluation:

+ research support, Blass and Smith showed the experiment and student blamed the experimenter rather than participants.

• Doesn’t explain why there isn’t 100% obedience in Milgram’s study.

+ Agency theory offers an excuse for destructive behaviour and is potentially dangerous.

Question 15

Obedience, dispositional factors, who made the theory of the authoritarian personality

Answer 15

Adorno

Question 16

What theory did Adorno establish

Answer 16

Adorno’s theory of the authoritarian personality.

Question 17

Adorno’s theory of the authoritarian personality. What is an authoritarian personality

Answer 17

Adorno’s theory of the authoritarian personality.

An authoritarian personality is someone who have strong respect for authority but look down on anyone they consider of lower status.

Question 18

Adorno’s theory of the authoritarian personality. Three elements, cognitive style, nuture and displacement.

Answer 18

Adorno’s theory of the authoritarian personality. Authoritarians are defined by:

1. Cognitive style: ridgid stereotypes and don’t like change.
2. Originates in childhood as a result of strict parents who only show love if behaviour is correct. These value become internalise.
3. Scapegoating: The hostility felt towards parents for being critical is put onto people who are socially inferior.

Question 19

Adorno’s theory of the authoritarian personality. Evaluation

Answer 19

Adorno’s theory of the authoritarian personality. Evaluation:

• Lack of support, authoriarian personality was measured on a F-scale which has response bias
• results are correlational, you can’t say that authoritarian personality causes greater obedience levels, other factors involved which may explain the link
• Social and dispositional. Germans were obedient but didn’t all have the same upbringing so dispositional factors alone can’t explain high levels of obedience, social factors were also involved

Question 20

Prosocial behaviour: Piliavin’s subway study. Aim, method, results, conclusion

Answer 20

Prosocial behaviour: Piliavin’s subway study.

Aim: to investigate if characteristics of a victim affect help given in an emergency.

Method:
103 trials, a confederate appearing to be drunk or disabled (with a cane) collapsing on a subway train.

Result:
Disabled victim helped on 95% of trials.
Drunk victim helped on 50% of trials.

Help was the same in a crowded or empty carriage.

Conclusion:
Characteristics of the victim influence the help given.
The number of onlookers doesn’t affect help in a natural setting.

Question 21

Prosocial behaviour: Piliavin’s subway study. Evaluation.

Answer 21

Prosocial behaviour: Piliavin’s subway study. Evaluation:

+ high realism as participants didn’t know they were being studied.

• Urban sample from a city, may not get the same results in a rural setting

+ Qualitative data, observers noted remarks from other passengers giving greater insight into why.

Question 22

Who conducted a study of Prosocial behaviour.

Answer 22

Irving Piliavin et al (1969) - others Jane Piliavin and Judith Rodin.

Question 23

What study did Irvin Piliavin et al conduct?

Answer 23

Piliavin’s Subway Study.

Question 24

What are the social factors effecting prosocial behaviour and evaluation. Two items and evaluation for each.

Answer 24

The two factors effecting prosocial behaviour are:

1. Presence of others: The more people present the less likely someone is to help. Darley and Latane found that 85% of people on their own helped a person with a seizure but only 31% in a group of 4.

Evaluation: Depends on situation, serious emergienies response correlated to the severity of the situation (Faul et al)

2. Cost of helping: danger to self or embarrassment or cost of not helping eg guilt of blame
   evaluation: If it’s a married couple arguing only 19% intervened, versus 85% intervened if the attacker appeared to be a stranger (Shortland and Straw)

Question 25

Prosocial behaviour, dispositional factors and evaluation

Answer 25

Prosocial behaviour, dispositional factors:

1. Similarity to victim, more likely to help someone similar to ourselves, Man U shirt (Levine et al).

Evaluation: High costs or an ambiguous situation means help isn’t forthcoming.

2. Expertise: people with the required expertise are more likely to help, RN helping a hurt workman (Cramer et al)

Evaluation: Affects only quality of help, Red Cross trained people were no more likely to help but gave higher quality help when they did (Shortland et al)

Question 26

Crowd and collective behaviour, name a study of de-individuation

Answer 26

Philip Zimbardo.

Question 27

What study did Philip Zimbardo do regarding Crowd and collective behaviou

Answer 27

Zimbardo’s study of deindividuation

Question 28

Crowd and collective behaviour, Zimbardo’s study of deindividuation: Aim, Method, Results and Conclusion

Answer 28

Crowd and collective behaviour, Zimbardo’s study of deindividuation:

Aim: To study the effects of loss of individual identity.

Method:
Female participants told to delivery fake electric shocks.
Individualated wore normal clothes
de-individulated wore large coats with hoods.

Result:
De-indivualated more likely to give the shock and held the button for twice as long.

Conclusion: being anonymous increases aggression.

Question 29

Crowd and collective behaviour, Zimbardo’s study of deindividuation: evaluation

Answer 29

Crowd and collective behaviour, Zimbardo’s study of de-individuation, Evaluation:

• not always anti-social: prosocial group norm ie nurses leads to less antisocial behaviour than a group with a antisocial group norm such as KKK.

+ Real world application, managing sports crowds by using video cameras leads to increased self awareness.

• Crowding, could be that it’s not de-indivualisation in the case of crowding but that being packed together is uncomfortable so causes agressive behaviou.

Question 30

Le bon’s explanation of crowd behaviour.

Answer 30

Crowds experience de-indivualisation leading to reduced sense of responsibility and anti-social behaviour.

Question 31

Who conducted a case study of Crowd and Collective behaviour?

Answer 31

Steven Reicher

Question 32

What study did Steven Reicher undertake

Answer 32

A study on one riot in St Pauls Bristol in 1980 to discover more about crowd and collective behaviour.

Question 33

Reicher study of St Paul’s 1980 riot: Aim, Method, Results, Conclusion

Answer 33

Reicher study of St Paul’s 1980 riot:

Aim: to investigate crowd behaviour to see if it was ruly or unruly.

Method:
Studied newspaper and tv reports.
Interviewed twenty people, six indepth.

Results:
Riot was triggered by a police raid on a cafe that the crowd considered unjust.

The crowd threw bricks, burnt police cars but calmed when the police left.

Conclusion:
Shows that damage was rule driven and targeted at the police, reflecting social attitude of the area.

Question 34

Reicher study of St Paul’s 1980 riot: Evaluation

Answer 34

Reicher study of St Paul’s 1980 riot:
Evaluation:

+ supported by research, football hooligans violence doesn’t escalate beyond a certain point (Marsh).

• Issues with methodology, EWT so data may be biased.

+ Real world application: Increasing police presence doesn’t lead to decreased violence.

Question 35

Crowd and collective behaviour, social factors and evaluation:

Answer 35

Crowd and collective behaviour: Social Factors:

1. De-indivualisation: group norms determine crowd behaviour.

Evaluation: Crowding, being packed tightly together is unpleasant and may explain antisocial behaviour.

2. Social loafing: When working in a group people put in less effort as you can’t identify individual effort: Latane et al found that individuals shouted less in a group of six than when tested along.

Evaluation: depends on the task, on creative tasks such as brainstorming people individually produce more when in groups.

3. Culture: Collectivist cultures such as Chinese put in the same amount of effort even if the amount can’t be identified. Opposite happens in individualist cultures such as America.

Evaluation: Overgeneralisation, people belong to more than one culture so hard to make predictions.

Question 36

Crowd and collective behaviour: two dispositional factors and evaluation.

Answer 36

Crowd and collective behaviour: dispositional factors:

1. Personality: High locus of control enables individuals to be less influenced by crowd behaviour.

Evaluation: Whistleblowing, personality made no difference, those willing or unwilling similar score on a personality test. (Bocchiaro et al)

2. Morality: Strong sense of right or wrong helps resist pressure from group norms.

Evaluation: Sophie Scholl sacrificed her life rather than follow group behaviour (distributing anti-nazi literature).