social influence evaluation Flashcards
Explanation for Obedience: Situational variables affecting obedience
support by Miranda et al
-The situational variable studies have been replicated in other cultures.
-Miranda et al. (1981) found an obedience rate of over 90% amongst Spanish students.
-This suggests that this explanation of obedience be seen as valid, as it can explain how uniform, proximity and location can affect obedience levels in cultures across the world
When researching each situational variable, Milgram systematically, altered one variable at a time, to see what impact it would have on 1 level of obedience.
When researching each situational variable, Milgram systematically, altered one variable at a time, to see what impact it would have on 1 level of obedience.
-He only changed uniform, proximity or location; did not change all three in one go. We can therefore be sure that the variable has an impact on obedience, showing that it has not be impacted by extraneous variables.
This gives the situational variable of obedience explanation more validity because we know it was measuring what it intended to measure.
Situational variables: Uniform is a valid explanation for obedience.
Paragraph 1
• Uniform is a valid explanation for obedience.
• Bickman had three confederates - one wore a jacket and tie, one was a milkman and one a security guard - they asked the public to pick up litter or pay money for the parking meter. He found that the public were more likely to obey the security guard than the other confederates.
• This supports the situational variable explanation of obedience because it shows that uniform (security guard) impacts the level of obedience shown in an everyday situation.
Milgram’s study lacks internal validity as there were demand characteristics.
Paragraph 2
• Milgram’s study lacks internal validity as there were demand characteristics.
• Orne and Holland argued that the participants would have worked out that the procedure was fake, particularly because one condition had the experimenter replaced by a member of the public.
• This means that the results are not valid because people did not act
“naturally in the experiment, they could have changed the way that they behaved either through the blease-u or screw-u effect meaning that Milgram was not able to measure the effect of situational variables on obedience.
• This is therefore a weakness of the study, which in turn weakens the evidence supporting this explanation of obedience.
There is research support for legitimacy of authority as an explanation of obedience.
Blass and Schmitt
Paragraph 1
• There is research support for legitimacy of authority as an explanation of obedience.
• Blass and Schmitt showed a film of Milgram’s study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to Mr. Wallace (the learner). The students blamed the ‘experimenter rather than the participant. The students said that the responsibility was due to the legitimate authority; the experimenter was at the top of the authority hierarchy in the situation and therefore his authority was legitimate.
•This shows that the students recognised legitimate authority as a cause of obedience providing support for this explanation.
Explanations for obedience:
The legitimacy of authority explanations can explain how obedience can lead to real-life war crimes.
Paragraph 3
* The legitimacy of authority explanations can explain how obedience can lead to real-life war crimes.
Kelman and Hamilton argue that the My Lai massacre, where around 500 unarmed Vietnam civilians were killed by American soldiers, can be understood in terms of the power hierarchy of the US army. Soldiers
* This shows there is real world evidence of legitimacy to authority.
4 This can lead to practical applications as there is the possibility that it could help us to understand how to prevent such crimes in the by challenging legitimate authority rather than obeying it mindlessly.
* Strength, double whopper, practical application
Explanations for obedience: There is supporting evidence for the legitimacy of authority explanation.
TW: Milgram location
Paragraph 4
* There is supporting evidence for the legitimacy of authority explanation.
* In Milgram’s original research, which took place at Yale
place in a rundown building in Bridgeport, Connecticut, obedience levels dropped significantly (48%).
* This change in location reduced the legitimacy of the authority as participants were less likely to trust the experiment.
* This meant that the participants were far less likely to obey, providing support for this explanation of obedience.
* Strength, double whopper, supporting evidence
Explanations for obedience:Agentic state
Blass and Schmitt showed a film of Milgram’s study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the learner.
Paragraph 3
* Blass and Schmitt showed a film of Milgram’s study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the learner.
* The students blamed the ‘experimenter’ rather than the participant.
* If the students felt that the responsibility was on the experimenter as the authority figure, it is easy to see how the teacher would have given up their responsibility and entered the agentic state, thus leading them to continue to give the electric shocks.
*This suggests that the agentic state is a valid explanation of obedience.
The agentic state explanation suggests that behaviour is not controlled by individuals.
tw: deterministic
• It suggests that free will can be given up.
• This is deterministic as it means that behaviour is controlled by something else i.e. the power an authority figure holds.
• This does not fit with the judiciary system which suggests that we have control over our actions and should be held responsible for the consequences of them.
The agentic shift does not explain why some of the participants in Milgram’s experiment did not obey.
tw: some situations of obedience.
Paragraph 1
* The agentic shift does not explain why some of the participants in Milgram’s experiment did not obey.
* The agentic state explanation suggests that as humans involved in social hierarchies the participants should have all obeyed the orders and hand over responsibility to the experimenter, but this was only the case for 65% of participants.
* This suggests that, at best, the agentic shift only accounts for some situations of obedience.
Agentic shift: In one variation of Milgram’s experiment an additional confederate administered the electric shocks on behalf of the teacher.
tw: shifting responsibility
Paragraph 5
• In one variation of Milgram’s experiment an additional confederate administered the electric shocks on behalf of the teacher.
The percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts rose dramatically, from 65% to 92.5%.
• This variation highlights the power of shifting responsibility (agentic shift), as these participants were able to shift their responsibility onto the person administering the electric shocks and continue obeying orders because they felt less responsible.
authoritarian personality
correlation but not causation (-)
• Milgram and Elm’s research is only correlational.
•It is impossible to draw the conclusion that authoritarian personality causes obedience on the basis of this result.
• It may be that a third factor is involved. Hyman and Sheatsley thought that both obedience and authoritarian personality were associated with lower levels of education and therefore not directly linked with each other.
• This limits the authoritarian personality explanation of obedience.
Research support
ap (+)
Milgram and Elms interview
• Milgram and Elms conducted interviews with some of the individuals involved in Milgram’s original study.
• Those participants who were highly obedient, were significantly more authoritarian on the F-scale than disobedient participants.
• This suggests that there is a link between authoritarian personality and obedience.
methodological problems (-)
AP
Methodological Problems
* A limitation of the authoritarian personality explanation is that it is based on a flawed methodology.
The scale has come in for severe criticism because every one of its items is worded in the same ‘direction’
* This means it is possible to get a high score for authoritarianism just by ticking the same line of boxes down one side of the page.
People who agree with the items on the F-scale are therefore not necessarily authoritarian by merely “acquiescers” and the scale is just measuring the tendency to agree to everything.
social support
- Asch
Asch Evaluation
There is evidence to show that social support impacts rates of conformity.
In Asch’s study, one of the confederates was instructed to give the correct answer throughout. In this variation,
conformity dropped to 5%.
•This demonstrates that if the real participant has support for their belief (social support), then they are more likely to resist the pressure to conform.
• However, when the ‘non-conforming’ confederate starts conforming again, so does the participants. This shows the effect of dissent is hot long lasting.
• Combo whopper
There is research support for the role of dissenting peers in resisting obedience.
-Gamson oil company
There is research support for the role of dissenting peers in resisting obedience. Gamson et al. (1982) asked participants to produce evidence that would be used to help an oil company run a smear campaign (a plan to discredit a public figure by making false accusations).
They found higher levels of resistance in their study than Milgram; 29 out of 33 groups of participants (88%) rebelled. This was probably because the participants in Gamson’s study were in groups, showing that peer support is linked to greater resistance.
There is evidence to show that social support impacts rates of obedience
-milgram
Milgram Evaluation
* There is evidence to show that social support impacts rates of obedience
¡In one variation of Milgram’s study, the real participant was paired with two additional confederates, who also played the role of teachers. The two additional confederates refused to go on and withdrew from the experiment early.
The percentage of real participants who proceeded to the full 450 volts, dropped from 65% to 10%
dropped from
* This shows that if the real participant has support (social support for their desire to disobey resist the pressure of an authority
then they are more likely to figure.
* Hamburger
Zimbardo eval
-control over variables
Point - A strength of the Stanford Prison Experiment is that Zimbardo and his colleagues had some control over variables.
Evidence - Emotionally stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned to the roles of guard and prisoner
Explanation - This was one way in which the researchers tried to rule out individual personality differences as an explanation of the findings.
Impact - Having such control over variables increases the internal validity of the study.
Validity- strength
Zimbardo - lack of realism in the study
Point - There was a lack of realism in the study
Evidence - According to Banuazizi and Mohavedi (1975) the guards may have actually been play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role. Their performances were based on stereotypes of how prisoners and guards should behave; guards acted brutally and prisoners started a riot.
Explanation - The behaviour that was observed may not have been due to the situation, but the participant’s assumptions about how they should have behaved meaning that it was not true or accurate.
Impact - This shows that the results may not have been valid
A major ethical issue arose because of Zimbardo’s dual roles in the study.
Point - A major ethical issue arose because of Zimbardo’s dual roles in the study.
Evidence - On one occasion a participant who wanted to leave the experiment spoke to Zimbardo when he was in his role as superintendent.
Explanation - This led to Zimbardo responding to the participant as a superintendent worried about the running of his prison, rather than as a researcher with responsibilities towards his participants.
Impact - The participant had to stay in the study for longer than they wanted, putting them at risk of psychological harm and it prevented them the right to withdraw.
Ethics - limitation
The role of LoC in resisting social influence may be exaggerated.
The Double Whopper
Point
The role of LoC in resisting social influence may be exaggerated.
Evidence
Rotter (1982) found that LoC is only important when people are in a novel (new) situation.
Explanation
This is a limitation because it means that LoC is only helpful in explaining a narrow range of new situations.
Impact
This means that even if people have an internal LoC but have conformed or obeyed in a specific situation in the past, they are likely to do so again.
There is contradictory evidence for the role of LoC and resistance to social influence.
TW: twenge research study
The Combo Whopper
Point
There is contradictory evidence for the role of LoC and resistance to social influence.
Evidence
Twenge et al. (2004) analysed data from American locus of control studies over 40 years (1960-2002). They knew that the American public had become more independent over this time. But people have become more external in their LoC.
Counterargument
Although this challenges the link between internal LoC and increasing resistance behaviour, it is possible that other factors could have influenced the results.
Explanation
It is possible that the change is because society is so unstable that many things are out of people’s personal control and therefore they are more external in their LoC.
Explanations of resistance to social influence: There is evidence to support the link between
LoC and resisting obedience.
Holland replication
Point
There is evidence to support the link between
LoC and resisting obedience.
Evidence
Holland repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured whether people were internal or external. He found 37% of internals did not go to 450v whereas only 23% of externals did not.
Explanation This shows that external individuals are less
likely to resist social influence and that internal individuals are more likely to resit social influence.
Minority influence
-artificial tasks
Artificial Tasks
A limitation of minority influence research is that the tasks involved are artificial.
For example, participants are asked to identify the colour of a slide in Moscovici’s research.
This means that the findings of minority influence studies are lacking external validity.
The impact of this is that we do not really know how minority influence works in real life social situations for example when a minority on a jury is trying to change people’s minds.
research support for internalisation
- minority influence
(double)
Research Support For
Internalisation
[Minority influence has been shown to change people’s beliefs privately.
In a variation of Moscovici’s blue-green slide study, participants were allowed to write down their answers, so they were private, rather than stating them out loud. It was found that people agreed more with the minority when they wrote their answers down.
This suggests that members of the majority were convinced by the minority’s argument and changed their own view, but were reluctant to admit it publicly.
This means that minorities do get people to question their own views and change their beliefs if they agree with the new point of view.
limited real-world application
minority influence
tw: distinction of majority and minority
Limited Real-World
Applications
Research studies usually make a very clear and obvious distinction between the majority and the minority.
For example in Moscovici’s study there were groups of 6 and the majority was 4 people and the minority 2 people.
Counterargument
However, real-life situations are much more complicated than this. There is more involved in the differences between a minority and a majority than just numbers. For example, majorities usually have a lot more power and status than minorities and minorities are usually very committed to their causes - they often face very hostile opposition.
Explanation
This means changing views is much more complicated in real-life and research does not account for this.
Explanations of conformity:
Despite evidence to support the role of NSI, there are individual differences in the proces
Despite evidence to support the role of NSI, there are individual differences in the process
NSI does not affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way.
People who are less concerned with being liked are less affected by NSI than those who care more about being liked.
This shows that the desire to be liked underlies conformity for some people more than other.
This therefore weakens the explanation of conformity as it does not explain everyone’s behaviour.
Explanations of conformity:
The idea of Deutsch and Gerrard’s ‘two-process’ approach is that behaviour is either due to NSI or ISI, however usually both processes are involved
For example, conformity is reduced when there is one other dissenting participant in the Asch experiment. This dissenter may reduce the power of NSI (because the dissenter provides social support) or may reduce the power of ISI (because there is an alternative source of information).
This shows that it is not always possible to be sure whether NSI or ISI is at work
This is a weakness of the explanation as it casts serious doubt over the view of NSI and ISI as two processes operating independently in conforming behaviour.
Variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch.
- high level of control
High level of control
For example, in the task difficulty variation, everything apart from the length of the lines remained the same .
This meant that he was able to see exactly how different variations of the experiment impacted on conformity levels.
The high level of control increased the internal validity of the study
