Social Influence

Question 1

Explain Locus of Control and evaluate it

Answer 1

Internal - things that happen to them are controlled by themselves and their own actions
External -things happen out of their control

+ research support
> Holland = repeated milgrams study and found 37% of internals and only 23% of externals did not continue to the highest shock level

Question 2

Evaluation of Zimbardos experiment

Answer 2

+ control
> over extraneous variables - choice of participants were emotionally stable showing the change was due to situation
- lack of realism
> argued ppts were just ‘play acting’ and based performances off stereotypes
> BUT Zimbardo found 90% of prison conversation was about prison life

Question 3

Who conducted research into obedience

Answer 3

Milgram mostly, lil bit of Adorno

Question 4

What were Milgrams situational variables and results of these

Answer 4

Proximity

• put teacher and learner in same room and obedience dropped to 40%
• experimenter gave orders over the phone and obedience dropped to 20.5%

Location
- conducted it in a run down building and obedience changed to 47.5%

Uniform
- the experimenter was played by an ‘ordinary member of the public’ and obedience dropped to 20%

Question 5

What are the three types of conformity

Answer 5

Internalisation

• when a person genuinely accepts the group norm as their own
• it is a public and private change
• the change is permanent so even when the group is absent

Identification

• when a person values something about the group
• it is a mostly public change

Compliance

• when a person ‘goes along with the majority’
• it is a public but not private change
• it is only temporary

Question 6

What is a barrier to social change

Answer 6

The minorities have a bad stereotype that people don’t want to be associated with so social change doesn’t occur.
For example, feminists can be seen as ‘man haters’

Question 7

What are the two explanations of conformity

Answer 7

Informational social influence

• people follow the majority because they believe they are more right and they want to be right as well
• often occurs in new situations where you don’t know what is right/wrong

Normative social influence

• we agree with the majority because we want to be accepted and gain social approval
• often occurs when someone is concerned about rejection from a group

Question 8

What were Asch’s variations

Answer 8

1. Group Size
   - with 3 confederate the conformity rose to 32% but any more made no difference
2. Unanimity
   - introduced a non-conforming confederate and conformity rate dropped
3. Task difficulty
   - made the line judging harder and found conformity increased (ISI)

Question 9

Evaluation of Milgrams study

Answer 9

• demand characteristics
  > ppts may have not believed the setup and guessed it wasn’t real electric shocks
  > BUT, King - 100% women, 54% men delivered a fatal shock to a dog
  + external validity
  > the lab environment accurately represented wider authority relationships
  > Hofling = 21 our out of 22 nurses delivered unjustified demands of doctors

Question 10

How does Locus of Control help resistance to social influence

Answer 10

• those who have an internal locus of control are more likely to be able to resist pressure to conform as they base their decisions on their own beliefs so can resist pressure from others
• people with internal LOC tend to be more self confident and have less need for social approval

Question 11

What is the authoritarian personality

Answer 11

One that Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority and dismissive of those inferior to them

Question 12

Evaluation of Asch’s research

Answer 12

• outdated
  > Perrin + Spencer = repeated his study in 1980 and found only one ppt who conformed out of 396
• artificial task
  > demand characteristics
  > not something that has to be done in everyday life
• not representative
  > only white American men tested
  > collectivist culture may have been different - cannot generalise

Question 13

Describe Moscovicis study into minority influence

Answer 13

• ppts had to identify blue coloured slides that varied in shades and say if they were green or blue
• 2 our of the 6 people were confederates
• in one version the confederates consistently gave the same wrong answer = 8.4% agreement
• in another versions the confederates were inconsistent and agreement dropped to 1.2%

Question 14

Describe the aspects to minority influence

Answer 14

Consistency
- keep the same beliefs over time and between the individuals to draw attention to the view
Commitment
- demonstrating dedication to their position by making sacrifices and doing extreme things to draw attention again
Flexibility
- accepting the possibility of a compromise

Question 15

Evaluation for minority influence

Answer 15

\+ research support
   > Moscovici
- artificial tasks
- real-life application
   > much more complex in real life

Question 16

Evaluation of Adorno

Answer 16

• correlation
  > no matter how strong the correlation or link it doesn’t show causation so Adorno cannot claim harsh parenting develops authoritarian personality
• methodological issues
  > its items are worded in the same direction
  > this leads to acquiescence bias which is people agreeing to everything

Question 17

What is a research study that supports Milgrams situational variables

Answer 17

Bickman

• had 3 confederates in a suit and security guard uniform
• asked people to do tasks like pick up litter
• people twice as likely to obey to security guard than suit

Question 18

What is social change

Answer 18

When whole societies, rather than individuals, adopt new attitudes/beliefs

Question 19

Describe Aschs research

Answer 19

• showed ppts 2 cards, one with a ‘standard line’ and the other with three ‘comparison lines’
• one of the lines was the same length and the other two were substantially wrong
• they had to say which lines matched
• each ppt was in a group of around 6 confederates and was always last or second last
• ppts gave the wrong answer around 37% of the time
• 75% conformed at least once
• when interviewed afterward they said it was to avoid rejection (NSI)

Question 20

Describe Adornos study

Answer 20

• developed the f-scale used to judge authoritarian personality
• tested 2000 white male americans
• those who scored high on the f-scale showed excessive respect to those in higher status and had fixed stereotypes about social groups
• strict parenting and criticism of failure in childhood leads to this

Question 21

Evaluation of NSI AND ISI

Answer 21

+ research support (ISI)
> Lucas = gave students mathematical questions and found greater conformity to harder questions than easier ones
+ research support (NSI)
> Asch
- individual differences
> nAffiliators - people who care more about what others think of them and so are more likely to conform

Question 22

Describe Zimbardo’s prison experiment

Answer 22

Procedure:

• advertised for students and chose those ‘emotionally stable’ after testing
• students were randomly assigned either guards or prisoners
• ‘prisoners’ were arrested at home, taken to the university blindfolded, stripped and issued a number
• guards had to heavily enforce the rules on prisoners and had complete power
• guards had their own uniform and wore shaded to hide their eyes

Findings:

• the guards harassed the prisoners constantly, often in the middle of the night and punished them for the smallest of actions
• after day 1, a prisoner was released
• after 2 days, the prisoners rebelled against their harsh treatment
• after this the prisoners became anxious, subdued, depressed
• the guards identified more with their role becoming more brutal and aggressive seemingly enjoying their power

Question 23

What did Milgram say about explanations for obedience

Answer 23

Autonomous state - being independent or free so acting according to your own principles
Agentic state - we believe we’re acting under an authority figure and so feel no responsibility for our actions
Agentic shift - the change from autonomy to agentic

Legitimacy of authority - we are more likely to obey people who have a higher authority over us (hierarchy)

Question 24

How does social support help resistance to social influence

Answer 24

Conformity + obedience

• more likely to resist with support as feel they are a ‘model’
• Asch showed that when someone else is also disagreeing the ppt was more likely to go against the majority

Question 25

Describe Milgrams original obedience study

Answer 25

Procedure:

• recruited 40 male ppts through newspapers
• there was a rugged draw with a confederate where the ppt was always the ‘teacher’ and confederate the ‘learner’
• there was also and ‘experimenter’ in a lab coat
• they were told at the start they could leave at any time
• the learner was strapped to an electric shock and were separated by a wall
• the teacher was required to give an electric shock every time the learner got a question wrong and moved up in volts every time
• shock started at 15V and ended at 450V (labelled severe)
• at 300V the learner pounded on the wall and after 315 the learner stopped responding
• the experimenter gave instructions, to make it seem like they had to continue if they asked to stop (eg. it is necessary that you continue)

Findings:

• no ppt stopped below 300V
• 12.5% stopped at 300V
• 65% continued to 450V