Social Influence

Question 1

Kelman (1958)

Answer 1

Came up with the three types of conformity:

Compliance
Identification
Internalisation

Question 2

Factors affecting conformity

Answer 2

Status of majority group
Size of majority group
Difficulty of task 
Self efficacy
Social support

Question 3

Lucas et al (2006)

Answer 3

Asked students to answer maths questions from easy to hard

Found that the harder they got the more students conformed

Self efficacy matters

Supports ISI

Question 4

Schultz (2008)

Answer 4

When hotel guests were exposed to a message saying their fellow guest reused towels, they reduced their own usage by 25%

Question 5

McGee and Tevan (1967)

Answer 5

Found that nAffiliators have a higher need for affiliation, and therefore will conform more due to NSI

Question 6

Sogon and Williams

Answer 6

Found that conformity was higher when the majority was friends rather than strangers

Question 7

Asch (1951)

Answer 7

123 male American undergraduates

What line is the same as the stimulus line

Participant answered second to last

32% conformed everytime

75% everytime

In a control study only 1% got the answer wrong

Question 8

Asch variations

Answer 8

Size of majority: 3 confederates rose conformity to 32%

Unanimity of group: when one confederate gave the right answer, conformity dropped to 5.5%

Difficulty of task: harder difficulty increased conformity

Question 9

Back et al (1963)

Answer 9

Found that participants in the Asch situation had greatly increased levels of autonomic arousal.

Question 10

Perrin and Spencer (1980)

Answer 10

Show lower levels of conformity in America in 1980s

Conducted Asch’s study with science and engineering students and found only 1 out of 396 joined the erroneous confederate.

However these different professions are objective and rigorous and may teach certain perceptual judgement, therefore it is hard to compare due to the different samples

Question 11

SPE (1971) key facts

Answer 11

Prisoners showed passive behaviour (learned helplessness)

Sadistic behaviour shown by Guards (deindividuation)

1 prisoner had to be sent home within 36 hours

Guards admitted to “acting”

When the priest came, they introduced themselves by their numbers

Question 12

Banuazizi (1975)

Answer 12

Explained the procedure of the SPE to random college students, who then tried to guess the aim of it, and they guessed the aim correctly

If they can guess they aim so can the participants.

Question 13

Milgram (1963)

Answer 13

Tested the “germans are different” hypothesis

40 male participants

65% went up to 450 volts

3 had uncontrollable seizures

Obedience was due to situational factors

Question 14

Kilham and Mann (1974)

Answer 14

Replicated Milgram’s study in Australia, a country with a culture of challenging authority, and only 16% went up to 450 volts

Question 15

Orne and Holland (1968)

Answer 15

Doubt that participants believed the Milgram experimental set up and that they knew it was fake

Question 16

3 factors affecting Obedience

Milgram’s situational factors

Answer 16

Proximity- Orders given over the phone- 20%

Authority-No lab coat- 20%

Setting-Conducted in a run down building-48%

Question 17

Bickman (1974)

Answer 17

Confederate dressed up as either a guard, milkman, or pedestrian and asked members of the public to perform random acts

Guard-76%
Milkman-47%
Pedestrian-30%

Question 18

Blass and Schmitt (2001)

Answer 18

Presented a video of Milgrams study and asked who they felt was responsible for the harm on the learner

Students blamed the experimenter not the teacher

For the “agentic state”

Question 19

Members of the German reserve police battalion 101

Answer 19

Murdered civilians without being ordered to

Acted autonomously out of hatred

There was no agentic shift as there no higher authority ordering them, thus they were not agents of anyone.

Goes against Milgrams agentic state, as clearly such behaviour is down to more than one factor.