Social Influence Exam Questions Flashcards
Explain how social influence leads to social change
Social influence leads to social change when the minority becomes a majority. Initially, they would have to persuade people to join them through informational social influence. This is persuading people due to the desire to be right. They will do this through being consistent, flexible and showing commitment. To show commitment, they could make sacrifices such as giving up their time to protest.
By doing this, a slow trickle of people will start to join the minority as they believe their message is right. Over time, the message will spread as the minority gets bigger and eventually this will gain momentum. Some people may start to agree not due to informational social influence but through normative social influence, the desire to be liked. When this occurs, the momentum of the change will increase. This is known as the snowball effect.
Once the message becomes the majority view, the law may change. People will then be unable to resist the message as the government is a legitimate authority and so they must obey this authority figure.
Identify and briefly discuss 2 reasons why people have criticised Zimbardos prison experiment.
One reason is the ethical issues. The participants were not well protected for psychological or physical harm. For example, many of the ‘guards’ felt guilty for their actions and many ‘prisoners’ felt severe anxiety and were sleep deprived.
Another reason is the demand characteristics. Zimbardo placed himself in the experiment as the chief superintendent. Guards often came to him for advice on how to deal with certain participants and he simply instructed them to keep control “by any means possible”. Therefore, he may of influenced their behaviour. (investigator effects)
Suggest one limitation of the authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience
It is measured by the F scale which has a questionable validity.
Explain 3 reasons why the instructors advice should be effective.
Uniform- the instructors jacket conveys legitimate authority
Proximity- standing up close means that people are more likely to obey such as in Milgrams study where the authority figure was more effective when in the same room.
Location- the use of the instructors office conveys the force of legitimate authority such as in Milgrams study where Yale was more likely to result in obedience than in Bridgeport,
Identify 3 variables affecting conformity and outline how each of these were manipulated by Asch
Group size- Asch repeated the study using 1 actor instead of 6. Conformity decreased to 3%
Unamity- Asch repeated the study but instead of 6 actors in agreement, he used 5 actors in agreement and 1 actor who gave the correct answer. Conformity decreased to 6%
Task difficulty- Asch repeated the study but made the lines similar to each other so the right answer was less obvious. Conformity increased.
Briefly explain 2 ways in which psychologists might address ethical issues in social influence research
Participants should be given the right to withdraw
Participants should be fully debriefed at the earliest opportunity
Explain 2 criticisms of Milgrams research
One major problem with Milgrams research is down to the fact that it was done in a labatory. Despite high control, the participants knew that they were being studied. This meant that the behaviour of the participants may not have been entirely natural as they may of guessed the aim of the experiment. This means we can’t generalise to findings on obedience to real life events.
Another issue with the study was the sample. Milgram used volunteer sampling of men. Because he used volunteer sampling, his sample is likely to be unrepresentative as it only used individuals who were likely to of seen the advert and be motivated to take part. Only using men means the sample was androcentric and the findings can’t be generalised to women.
When you are a passenger on a train, you are much more likely to move to another seat if ticket collector tells you to move than if another passenger tells you. Explain this behaviour
An ticket collector on a train is seen as legitimate authority therefore you are more likely to obey compared to a passenger who isn’t seen as legitimate authority. The inspector is likely to be wearing uniform which conveys his authority. The power of uniform is supported by a study by Bickman where participants in New York obeyed orders significantly more when they were dressed as a securit guard than wearing civilian clothes.
Explain one or more reasons why people obey authority
One explanation for obedience is the agentic shift. This theory proposed by Milgram suggests that obedience occurs when someone stops work autonomously (in control of their own actions) and starts to work as an agent for someone else. This was evidenced in Milgrams participants often checking with the experimenter .
Describe 2 ethical issues that can be illustrated by Milgrams research into obedience to authority
One ethical issue was deception. The participants thought they were signing up for a memory test. Also there was a draw to decide who was going to be he learner and who was going to be the teacher but it was fixed that the confederate was always the teacher.
Also the experiment didn’t fully give participants the right to withdraw. When participants hesitated in giving shocks and asked to stop, they were given prompts such as ‘the experimenter requires you to continue’.
Both of these issues mean that the risk of psychological harm was increased.
Outline and evaluate the authoritarian personality as an explanation of obedience to authority
Adorno concluded that people with an authoritarian personality have a tendency to be especially obedient to authority. They have extreme respect for authority. Adorno concluded that this personality is developed during childhood as a result of strict parenting.
Adorno came up with the F scale questionnaire which has 30 questions assessing different aspects of people’s personality.
One strength is that Milgram and Elms provided evidence to support it. They replicated Milgrams original study and then gave participants the F scale questionnaire. They found that highly obedient participants had significantly higher F scale scores that those who disobeyed.
