Social influence eval ppl

Question 1

Asch

Answer 1

Support for Normative social influence
- Asch interviewed his pp’s after the study and asked them why they conformed and some said it was because they felt self-conscious and were afraid of disapproval. When answers were written down, conformity fell to 12.5% due to reduced normative group pressure.

Question 2

Lucas

Answer 2

Support for informational social influence
- Lucas found that people were more likely to conform when the maths problems he gave to pp’s were more difficult. This is because when the questions got harder, the situation became more ambiguous and so pp’s relied on the group to have better information and so conformed to be correct.

Question 3

McGhee and Teevan

Answer 3

support for individual differences in NSI
- found that students who were nAfilliators were more likely to conform
(nAfilliators = people who are more concerned with being liked by other people)

Question 4

Banuazizi and Mahovedi

Answer 4

Lack of realism in Zimbardo’s study
- Suggested that pp’s were play acting rather than conforming. Participants based their performance on stereotypes of how prisoners and guards should act (one guard said he was basing his role on a character from a film called ‘cool hand luke’)

Question 5

McDermott

Answer 5

Counterpoint to Banuazizi and Mahovedi
- Argued that prisoners did behave as though the prison was real (eg: 90% of conversations were about prison life and referred to their time in the experiment as a ‘sentence’)
-Prisoner 416 later stated that he thought the prison was real but ran by psychologists rather than the government

Question 6

Fromm

Answer 6

Exaggeration of power in social roles by Zimbardo
- Only 1/3 of the guards behaved brutally, 1/3 applied the rules fairly and the others tried to actively support the prisoners by giving them cigarettes and privileges.

Question 7

Riecher and Haslam

Answer 7

Alternate explanation to Zimbardo
-Criticised Zimbardo as he did not account for behavior of non-brutal guards.
Instead they used the Social Identity Theory (SIT) to explain that both prisoners and guards had to identify with their role to act how they did.
-Prisoners acted passively as their social identity was broken by the actions of the guards, but then when many prisoners shared the same broken social identity they come together to resist oppression rather than accept it hence the prison riots and hunger strikes.
- Guards conformed to their roles in a brutal role as that was what was promoted by Zimbardo In his briefing before the study. Therefore they felt a shared social identity which minimised the effects of their actions.

Question 8

Beauvois

Answer 8

Support for Milgram’s study
- Milgrams findings were replictaed on a french documentary through a staged game show. Participants were paid to give electric shocks ordered by the presenter to other participants (actors) in front of a studio audience.
80% = 460v shock to a man said to be unconscious
Behaviour of pp’s was almost identical to the behaviour of Milgram’s pp’s

Question 9

Orne and Holland
(and Perry) - MILGRAM BASELINE

Answer 9

Criticism of Milgram
- Suggests that the participants knew that the study setup was not real and so they were play-acting.
Perry = found that only 1/2 of Milgram’s pp’s thought the shocks were real and 2/3 of these pp’s were disobedient suggesting they acted in demand characteristics.

Question 10

Sheridan and King

Answer 10

Counterpoint to Orne and Holland
- Did a replication of Milgram’s work and found that all students gave real shocks to puppies after being ordered by experimenters.
-Despite real distress from the puppy:
54% of men and 100% of women gave what they thought was a fatal shock to puppies
PP’s BEHAVE OBEDIENTLY WHEN SHOCKS ARE REAL.

Question 11

Haslam (For Milgram)

Answer 11

Alternate explanation to Milgram
- pp’s obeyed when experimenter gave the first three verbal prompts, but every participant who was given the 4th verbal prompt then disobeyed
- According to the SIT, pp’s only obeyed when they identified with the science of the research (THE EXPERIMENT requires that you continue) but when they had the opportunity to disobey the authority figure then they did.

Question 12

Bickman

Answer 12

Support for Uniform variable
- Three confederates dress in 3 different outfits (Milkman, suit and tie and security guard). Each confederate stood in the street and asked people to do tasks such as pick up litter.
people 2x more likely to obey security guard than suit and tie

Question 13

Meeus and Raajmakers

Answer 13

Replicated Milgram in other cultures
-Dutch realistic replication of Milgram
-pp’s ordered to say stressful things in an interview to a confederate who seemed desperate for a job (90% of pp’s obeyed)
-When the person giving the orders was not in the room, obedience fell significantly (PROXIMITY SUPPORT)

Question 14

Smith and Bond

Answer 14

Counterpoint of Meeus and Raajmakers
-Replications are not significantly ‘cross-cultural’
-Only 2 replications identified in countries culturally different to the US (India and Jordan), other countries eg Scotland have similar values to the US

Question 15

Orne and Holland (situational variable)

Answer 15

Criticism of situational variables
- Said that the participants knowing the procedure was fake was even more true for situational variables
eg: the experimenter being replaced by a member of the public - even Milgram said that pp’s could have worked out the truth

Question 16

Mandel

Answer 16

Criticism for situational variables
- situational perspectives could be seen an excuse for evil behaviour. Eg: it may be offensive to suggest that the nazi’s involved in the holocaust were simply obeying orders. Milgrams explanation ignores variables such as personality, implying that the nazis were victims of situational factors out of their control.

Question 17

Milgram’s studies

Answer 17

Support for the agentic state
- Many of Milgrams pp’s questioned the experimenter at some point and asked ‘who is responsible if Mr Wallace is harmed?’. The experimenter replied ‘Me’ which led to the participant continuing to give shocks.

Question 18

Rank and Jacobson
(agentic state)

Answer 18

Limited explanation of the agentic state
-16/18 hospital nurses disobeyed a doctor to administer excessive drug dosage to patients. The doctor is an obvious authority figure, but the nurses nearly all remained autonomous as did some of Milgram’s pp’s

Question 19

Kilham and Mann
(and Mantell)

Answer 19

Supports cultural differences
-In a Milgram-style study, only 16% of Australian women gave a 450v shock, but in a german study (Mantell) this was found to be 85%

Question 20

Rank and Jacobson
(Legitamacy of authority)

Answer 20

Doesn’t explain all disobedience
-Most nurses disobeyed a structured hierarchy despite recognising the doctors authority, as did some of MIlgram’s pp’d despite recognising experimenter having scientific authority.
SOME PEOPLE MAY BE INNATELY MORE OR LESS OBEDIENT THAN OTHERS

Question 21

Elms and Milgram

Answer 21

Support for dispositional explanations
- Interviewed 20 obedient pp’s from original study and had them take the F-scale and scored higher overall than a control group of 20 disobedient pp’s. These groups were significantly different in authoritarianism
HOWEVER= SOME OBEDIENT PPS DID HAVE CHARACTERISTICS THAT CONTRADICTED THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

Question 22

Christie and Jahoda

Answer 22

Criticism of the F-scale
-Say that the F-scale is politically biased toward the authoritarian personality
-Both extreme left and right wing ideologies have a lot in common, such as extreme respect for political authority.

Question 23

Greenstein

Answer 23

Flawed F-scale
-F-scale is subject to aquiescence bias as it is easy to get a high score by simply pressing agree to all answers

Question 24

Albrecht

Answer 24

Research support for resistance to SI
- evaluated a programme to prevent peer pressure of pregnant teens smoking. Social support provided by an older buddy and it was found that those with a buddy were less likely to smoke than a control group who had no buddy

Question 25

Gameson

Answer 25

research support for dissenters
- pp’s asked to produce evidence that would be useful in helping an oil company to run a smear campaign
-found higher levels of resistance as pp’s in groups and 29/33 groups disobeyed orders, which shows peers can lead to resistance against authority

Question 26

Holland

Answer 26

Reserach of support for LOC
- Repeated Milgram’s study and measured whether pp’s were internal and external LOC. Found that 37% of internals did not give a 450v shock and 23% of externals did not. Shows that the internals had greater resistance to social control.

Question 27

Twenge

Answer 27

Contradicts LOC
- meta analysis of LOC studies over 40 years and found that people had become more resistant to obedience and more external
If resistance to SI was linked to internal, we would have expected people to be more internal.

Question 28

Rotter

Answer 28

Limited role of LOC
- states that the role of the LOC is most significant in new situations. If we have already obeyed to a situation in the past, we have a higher chance of obeying again regardless of LOC.

Question 29

Wood

Answer 29

Support for consistency
-meta analysis of 100 similar studies to Moscovici and found that the studies with a consistent minority were most influential

Question 30

Martin

Answer 30

Support for deeper processing
- message promoting a viewpoint and measured pp agreement
- one group then heard a minority agree with the initial view while another group heard a majority agree with the view. All pp’s then exposed to a conflicting view and attitude measured again
-found that pp’s were less likely to change opinions if they had heard a minority group suggesting it had been more deeply processed

HOWEVER = CRITICISM FOR APPLICATION TO REAL WORLD SI AS MAJORITIES HAVE MORE POWER

Question 31

Nolan

Answer 31

Support for normative Social Influences
-Hung messages on front doors saying that ‘most people were trying to change their energy habits’ and some residents just had posters promoting saving energy.
-found significant decreases in energy uses in the first group where other people were used within the message

Question 32

Foxcroft

Answer 32

Counterpoint for Nolan
-reviewed 70 studies where social norms interventions were used to reduce alcohol intake in students
-Only small impact of drinking quantity and no effect on frequency

DOESNT ALWAYS LEAD TO LONG TERM CHANGE

Question 33

Nemeth

Answer 33

Minority influence can explain change
-Suggested that social change occurs due to divergent thinking, which is broad and weighs up options.
-Suggests that this leads to better decisions and solutions for social change so dissenting minorities are valuable in creating creative ideas

Question 34

Mackie

Answer 34

Limited role of deeper processing
-suggests that it may be MAJORITY not MINORITY influence that creates deeper processing.
- we like to think that everyone shares our views and when we learn that others do not agree with us we are forced to think long and hard about their arguments

Question 35

Bashir

Answer 35

Barriers to social change
-people still resist change despite minority influence
-participants were less likely to behave in environmentally friendly ways as they did not want to be associated to stereotypical environmentalists, who they had negatively labelled.
-Despite this, researchers could suggest ways in which minorities could overcome barriers to social change such as flexibility