SOCIAL INFLUENCE EVALUATION Flashcards
Evaluate the study of Normative Influence by Asch
4-
WEAKNESS: ACHS RESEARCH IS NOT CONSISTENCE ACROSS ALL SITUATIONS AND TIME PERIODS AND IS NOT A FUNDAMENTAL ASPECT ON HUMAN BEHAVIOR.
-Perrin and Spencer (1980), study with UK engineering students.
-Only 1 student conformed in a total of 369 trials.
-Possible: engineering students more confident in knowledge than original sample.
-Also possible 1950s was an especially conformist time in America, therefore more conformity to social Norms.
WEAKNESS: ARTIFICIAL SITUATION AND TASK.
-Participants knew they were in a research study.
-may have adopted demand characteristics.
-The group participants were part of did not resemble groups were part of in everyday life.
-Sidings do not generalise to everyday situations.
LIMITED APPLICATION OF FINDINGS
-Only men tested in study.
-women may be more conformist, due to more concern about social relationships - Neto (1995)
-USA, Individualistic culture, less conformist than studies done in collectivist cultures (eg. China, social group is more important than individual). - (Bond and Smith 1996).
ETHICAL ISSUES
-Naive Participants deceived.
-thought confederates were genuine participants.
-limitation because it does not follow ethical guidelines, could humiliate participants. However, participants would have developed demand characteristics had they know true aim, reducing the internal validity, so deception was necessary.
EVALUATE ZIMBARDO’S STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT
2- and +
STRENGTH: CONTROL.
-some control over variables.
-Emotionally stable participants were chosen based on a question air.
-Could rule out individual personality differences in findings.
-If guards + prisoners behaved differently but were chosen by chance, then behavior must be down to conformity to social role.
-Thus strength, increases internal validity, we can be more confident about conclusions.
LIMITATION: LACK OF REALISM
-Banuazizi and Mohavedi (1975) argued participants were play-acting rather than genuinely conforming.
-one guards claimed he based his role off a brutal character from a film.
-Explain why prisoners rioted, thought that was what prisoners do.
-Counter, situation was very real, 90% of conversations were about prison life. Prisoner 416 expressed feeling that prison was real, run by psychologist instead of government.
-High degree of internal validity, if situation felt real.
LIMITATION: ROLE OF DISPOSITIONAL INFLUENCES
-Fromm (1973) accused Zimbardo of exaggerating power of situational influence.
-only a minority of guards ( a third) behaved in a brutal manner.
-another third applied rules fairly.
-last helped and supported prisoners, offered cigarettes and reinstated privileges.
-Zimbardo’s conclusion overstated, differences in guards behavior indicates they had ability to exercise right or wrong choices, despite situational pressures.
Evaluate types of conformity
2- and +
Research support for ISI:
-Strength.
-Lucas et al (2006), asked students to answer mathematical problems that were easy or more difficult.
-Greater conformity to incorrect answers when questions were hard.
-people conform in situations where they feel unsure of the answer.
-We assume others know better than us and conform.
Individual differences in NSI (Normative social influence):
-Weakness.
-Some individuals are less concerned with being liked and are less affected by NSI.
-Others need ‘affiliation’ - need for being in a relationship with others.
-There desire to be liked makes them more likely to conform.
-So individual differences in how much you desire to be liked can affect NSI.
-McGhee and Teevan (1967) found students in high need of affiliation were more likely to conform.
ISI and NSI work together:
-Weakness, it is not always one or the other can be both.
-Often both NSI and ISI are involved in making people conform.
-Eg. Achs study, conformity went down when another dissenting participant introduced. Could have gone down because of reduced NSI (Dissenter proves social support) or reduced ISI (Alternative source of information is introduced.)
-Hard to seperate in lab studies, let alone real life.
Evaluate Milgram’s original obedience study
- and 2+
Weakness: Low internal validity.
-Orne and Holland (1968) argued participants behaved the way they did because they didn’t believe in the set up (guessed it was a false electric shock).
-Milgram therefore was no testing what he intended to.
-Lacks internal validity.
-Gina Perry (2013), found many participants reported doubts about shock being real. (used tapes from og experiment).
-However, Sheridan and King (1972), similar experiment, real shocks on puppies, 54% of men and 100% of women delivered what they thought was a fatal shock.
-Milgram also reported 70% of his participants believed shocks were real.
Strength: Good external validity.
-Milgram argued lab experiment actually reflected wider authority relationships in real life.
-Hofling’s nurse study in hospital ward (1966), found levels of obedience to unjustified demands were very high, 21 out 22 nurses obeyed.
-Suggests processes of obedience to authority that occurred in Milgrams lab can be generalized to the wider population.
Strength: Supporting replication.
-The Game of Death, documentary on reality TV, presented on French TV in 2010.
-Replicated Milgrams study.
-Paid to give electric shocks (fake) - ordered by presenter - to other participants (actually actors) in front of a live audience.
-80% of participnats delivered maximum 460 volts to an ‘unconscious man’.
-Demonstrates Milgram’s findings were not just a one-off.
Evaluate Milgram’s Variations
2+ and -
Strength: Research support.
-Other studies have demonstrated the influence of these variations on obedience.
-Field experiment New York city, Bickman (1974), 3 confederate in 3 different outfits. (Jacket +tie, Milkman’s outfit, security guard.)
-Confederates stood in street, asked passer-by’s to perfom tasks (picking up litter, or giving them a coin in parking lot.)
-Passer-by 2 times as likely to obey “security guard” than jacket + tie.
-supports that uniform conveys authority.
Weakness: Lack of internal Validity.
-Orne Hollands criticism of Milgrams og study was that many participants worked out procedure was fake.
-Even more likely participants in variation experiments realized this due to the extra manipulation.
-One variation, experimenter was replaced by member of the public, situation was so contrived that it was likely participants realized it was fake.
-Limitation, participants saw through deception and acted accordingly.
Strength: Cross cultural replications.
-Findings have been replicated in other cultures (including findings of his variations.) and have been very supportive.
-Miranda et al (1981), found 90% obedient rate in of Spanish students.
-Suggests Milgrams conclusion are not limited to American Males.
-However, Smith and Bond (1998) crucially pointed out most replications took place in Western societies (Australia and Spain), not that culturally different from USA.
Evaluate the Agentic state:
+ and -
Strength: Research Support.
-Blass and Schmitt (2001) showed a film of Milgram’s study to students, asked them to identify who was responsible for harm to the learner.
-Students blamed experimenter, not participant.
-indicated that this responsibility was due to the experimenter’s legitimate authority and expert authority (cause he was a scientist.)
-They recognized legitimate authority as a cause of obedience.
Weakness: Limited explanation.
-Doesn’t explain why some participants did not obey. (if all humans are social animals involved in social hierarchy then they should all obey.)
-Agentic state doesn’t explain Hofling et al’s study results. Agentic shift explanation predicts that as nurses handed over responsibility to the doctor, they would have displayed anxiety as they understood their roles in distructive process, not the case.
-Suggests agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience.
Evaluation of Legitimacy authority.
1+
Strength: Cultural differences.
-Theory explains that it is important to account for cultural differences in obedience.
-Studies showed different countries differ in obedience.
-Kilham and Mann (1974) replicated Milgrams procedure in Australia, only 16% of participants went to top voltage.
-Mantel (1971) Germany, 85% of participants went to top voltage.
-Reflects fact that in different societies are structured differently and children are raised to perceive authority figures differently.
-These supportive findings from cross cultural research support theories validity.
Evaluate the authoritarian personality theory.
2- and +
Strength: Research support.
-Milgram conducted interviews with small sample of fully obedient participants who scored highly the f-scale beleiving in a link between authoritarian personality and obedience.
-However, this could just be correlational, difficult to draw conclusion on authoritarian personality causing obedience.
-Some suggest a third factor is involved. Both authoritarian personality and obedience are associated with low levels of education and are not directly linked. (Hyman and Sheatsley 1954).
Limitation: Limited explanation.
-Explaining obedience in terms of individual personality, struggles to explain obedience in the majority of a country.
-Eg, pre-war Germany, millions of individuals displayed obedient, racist and anti-Semitic views, despite the fact that they must have all differed in personalities.
-Limitation of Adorno’s theory, other theories such as social identity (the majority of people identified with the anti-Semitic Nazi state, and scapegoated the ‘outgroup’ jews.), are much more realistic explanations.
Weakness: Political bias.
-F-scale measures tendency towards an extreme right-wing ideology.
-Christine and Jahoda (1954) argued that there is a politically biased interpretation of the authoritarian personality.
-Eg. Extreme left-wing authoritarianism, in Russian Bolshevism and Chinese Maoism.
-Extreme left and right wing have much in common, especially the fact they both emphasize importance of complete obedience to legitimate political authority.
-Adorno’s theory cannot account for obedience to authority across the political spectrum.
Extra Evaluation for the authoritarian personality theory.
2 limitations.
Limitation: Methodological problems.
-Authoritarian personality is based on flawed methodology.
-F-scale has acquiescence bias, meaning all it’s items are worded in the same direction, meaning to get a high score for authoritarianism all you need to do is tick the same line of boxes down one side of the page.
-People who agree with the items on F-scale are therefore not necessarily authoritarian, but merely ‘Aquiescers’, meaning the scale is just measuring the tendency to agree with everything.
Limitation: Corellation, not causation.
-Adorno found many significant correlations between a range of variables.
-authoritarianism was strongly correlated with measures of prejudice against minority groups.
-However, though there is a correlation, this does not prove that one causes the other.
-Therefore, Adorno cannot claim things like harsh parenting style causing authoritarian personalities.
Evaluate Resistance to social influence, social support theory.
2+
Strength: Research support - Resistance to conformity.
-Allen and Levine (1971), found conformity decreased when there was one dissenter in an Achs-type study. (even is the dissenter said he had bad vision, meaning he wouldn’t actually be better at the task).
-Supports view that resistance is not just motivated by following what someone else say, but it enables someone to be free of the pressure from the group.
Strength: Research support -resistance to obedience.
-Gamson et al (1982), found higher levels of resistance in there study than Milgrams, because participants were in groups, 29 out of 33 groups of participants rebelled.
-Peer support is linked to greater resistance.
-Gamson’s study participants had to produce evidence that would be used to help an oil company run a smear campaign.
Evaluate Resistance to social influence: Locus of control theory.
+ and -
Strength: research support.
-Link between LOC and resistance to obedience.
-Holland (1967) repeated Milgrams baseline study and measured wether participants had internal or external LOCs.
-37% of those with internal LOCs did not administer highest voltage shock.
-only 23% of external LOCs did not administer highest voltage shock.
-Increases validity of this explanation and our confidence that it can explain resistance.
Weakness: contradictory research.
-Twenge et al. (2004), analysed data from American LOC studies over 40 year period. (1960 - 2002).
-People have become more resistance to obedience but also more external LOCs over this time span.
-Challenges link between inter LOC and increasing resistance. However, results are possibly due a changing society where many things were out of personal control.
Evaluate Minority Influence
2+ and -
Strength: Research support for consistency.
-Moscovici et al.’s study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater affect on the other people than an inconsistent one.
-Wood et al. (1994) carried out a met-analysis of almost 100 similar studies, found consistent minorities were more influential.
-Suggests consistency is a major factor in minority influence.
Strength: Support for depth of thought.
-Change to minority position involves deeper processing of ideas.
-Martin et al. (2003), participants gave participants message supporting particular viewpoint, support for view measured. 1 group then heard a minority group agree with initial view, other heard this from a majority group.
-Participants finally exposed to a conflicting view and attitudes were measure again.
-Participants less willing to change their view if they had listened to a minority group than those who had listened to a majority group.
-Suggests minority message had been more deeply processed, supports central argument for how minority influence process works.
Limitation: Artificial tasks.
-Tasks involved in research often artificial.
-Eg. identifying color of a slide.
-Not generalisable to real life minority influence. (Eg. Jury decisions and political campaigning, vastly important outcomes.)
-Minority influence studies (such as Moscovici) lack external validity.
-Limits what they can tell us about real life minority influence.
-
Evaluate Social Influence and Social Change.
2- and +
Strength: Research support for normative influences.
-Nolan et al. (2008), researched if social influence processes can lead to reduction of energy consumption in an area.
-Hung message on front doors, San Diego, every week for a month.
-Message was that most residents were trying to reduce energy usage.
-Control group, messages asked them to save energy, no reference to other peoples behaviour.
-Found significant decrease in energy usage of first group.
-Shows conformity can lead to social change through operation of normative influence.
Weakness: Minority influence is only indirectly effective.
-Charlan Nemeth (1986) argues that effect of minority influence are likely indirect and delayed.
-Indirect because majority is influenced on matter only related to issue, not the issue itself.
-Delayed because effects may not be seen for some time.
-Limitation of using minority influence to explain social change, because it’s affect are obviously fragile and it’s roles in social influence are very limited.
Weakness: Role of deeper processing.
-Mascovici’s explanation of minority influence claims minority and majority influence involve different cognitive processes. Minority influence involves deeper processing.
-Diane Mackie (1987) disagrees, argues that majority influence is more likely to create deeper processing if you do not share their views. Because we like to believe other people share our views, when we find out majority believes different, we are forced to think long and hard about their arguments and reasoning.
-casts doubt on the validity of Moscovici’s theory as it challenges a central process of it.
