social influence flashcards
1
Q
what does conform mean?
A
a form of social influence that results from exposure to the majority position and leads to adopting the same behaviour, attitudes and values of other members of a reference group
2
Q
what is internalisation?
A
occurs when an individual accepts influence because the content of the attitude or behaviour proposed is consistent with their own value system
3
Q
what is compliance?
A
an individual accepts influence because they hope to achieve a favourable reaction from those around them. attitude or belief is not adopted because of the content, but for the rewards or approval associated.
4
Q
what is normative conformity?
A
an individual conform with the expectations of the majority in order to gain approval or to avoid social disapproval
5
Q
what is informational conformity ?
A
a form of influence, which is the result of a desire to be right - looking to others as a way of gaining evidence about reality
6
Q
what is identification?
A
an individual adopts an attitude or behaviour because they want to be associated with a particular person or group
7
Q
according to Kelman (1958), what are the types of conformity ?
A
compliance:
- focuses more on the reward reaction rather than the actual beliefs
- often changed at the request of another person
outwardly changing behaviour, but internal thoughts remain the same
internalisation:
- deepest level of conformity
- a person truly believes what they are saying
- usually a long term change
- unconscious mental process
- beliefs are permanent
identification:
- public and private beliefs change in the presence of a groups
- short term change
8
Q
what is involved in normative conformity?
A
- conforming in order to gain approval or avoid disapproval
- it is possible to go along with the majority without accepting their point of view = compliance
-as humans, we have a fundamental need for social companionship i.e to gain the approval and acceptance of others - an important condition for normative influence = the individual must think they are under surveillance by the group
- when this happens, people generally conform to the group in public but don’t necessarily internalise the view = does not carry into private settings and does not endure over time (Nail, 1986)
9
Q
what is involved in informational conformity?
A
- conforming in order to loon right, gaining evidence of reality from others
- as well as needing to be accepted, humans need to feel confident in their beliefs
- initially, one might make check of their reality (checking facts) but if this isn’t possible, we need to rely on the opinions of others
more likely in an ambiguous situation e.g Asch’s line study, or where others are experts e.g they have more information than we do
-as a result, very rarely just comply, usually change behaviour both publicly and privately = internalisation
10
Q
weakness of type of conformity: difficult to distinguish between compliance and internalisation
A
- the relationship between compliance and internalization is complicated because of difficulties in knowing when each is actually taking place
-for example, it is assumed that a person who publicly agrees with a majority yet disagrees with them in private must be demonstrating compliance rather than internalisation - However, it is also possible that acceptance of the group’s view has occurred in public, yet dissipated later when in private
- this could be that they have forgotten information given or because they have received new information
- this demonstrates the difficulty in determining what is, and what is not, simple compliance rather than internalisation
11
Q
strength of type of conformity: research support for normative conformity
A
- US research has supported the import role played by people’s normative beliefs in shaping behaviours such as smoking and energy conservation
- Linkenback & Perkins (2003) found that adolescents exposed to the simple message that the majority of their peer group did not smoke were less likely to take up smoking
- Schultz (2008) found that hotel guest exposed to the normative message that 75% of guests reuse their towels each day (an indication of energy conservation behaviour) reduced their towel use by 25%
-these studies support the claim that people shape their behaviour out of a desire to fit in with their reference group, and as such demonstrates the power of normative conformity
12
Q
strength of type of conformity: research support for informational influence
A
- Some studies have demonstrate how exposure to other people’s beliefs has an important influence on social stereotypes
-Wittenbrink and Henley (1996) found that participants exposed to negative information about African Americans (which they were led to believe was the opinion of the majority) reported more negative beliefs around black people. - Research has also shows how informational social influence can shape public opinion → Fien et al (2007) demonstrated how judgments of candidate performance in the US presidential debate could be influenced by the knowledge of others reactions
- Participants saw what were supposedly the reactions of their fellow participants on screen during the debate.
This produced large shifts in the participant’s judgements of the candidate performance
13
Q
weakness of type of conformity: Normative conformity may not be detected
A
- research on conformity has led to the conclusion that normative influence has a powerful effect on the behaviour of the individual. - - However, researchers have started to speculate whether individuals do actually recognise the behaviour of others as a causal factor in their own behaviour
-Nolan et al (2008) investigated whether people detected h=the influence of social norms on their energy conservation behaviour.
-When asked about what factors had an impact on their own energy conservation, people believed that the behaviour of their neighbours had the least impact on their own energy conservation, yet results showed that it had the strongest impact.
-This suggests that people rely on beliefs about what should motivate their behaviour and so under- decree the impact of normative influence
14
Q
what was the sample of Asch’s line study?
A
participants were 123 American male undergraduate students, tested with a group of between 6 and 8 confederates
15
Q
what was the procedure of Asch’s line study?
A
- On the first few trails, the confederates gave the correct answer, but then they started making errors
- All confederates were instructed to give the same wrong answer
- Each participant took part in 18 trials and on 12 ‘critical trials’ the confederates gave the wrong answer
- A trial was one occasion identifying the length of a standard line
16
Q
what was the findings of Asch’s line study?
A
- Participants got the answer wrong 36.8% of the time
- Overall, 25% of participants did not conform on any trails, which means that 75% conformed at least once
- The term Asch Effect has been used to describe this result - the extent to which participants conform, even when the situation is ambiguous
- When participants were interviewed afterwards most said they conformed to avoid rejection (normative conformity)
17
Q
Variables Affecting Conformity - Group Size (Campbell and Fairey 1989)
A
- Very little conformity when the majority consisted of one or two confederates
- However, when under pressure of three confederates, the proportion of conforming responses jumped up to 30%
- Further increases in the size of the majority did not increase this level of conformity substantially - size of majority is important, but only up to a point
- Campbell and Fairey (1989) suggest group size might have a different effect depending on the type of judgement made and the motivation of the individual
- Where there is no objectively correct answer (e.g musical preference) and the individual is concerned about ‘fitting in’ then the larger the majority the more likely they are to conform
- However, if there is a correct response and the individual is concerned about being correct, then the view of just one or two other will be sufficient
18
Q
Variables Affecting Conformity - Unanimity
A
- In Asch’s study, the confederates were asked to unanimously give the wrong answer
- When the real participant was given the support of either another real participant or a confederate who had been instructed to give the correct answer, conformity levels dropped significantly
- Reduced percentage of wrong answer from 33% to just 5.5%
- If a lone ‘dissenter’ gave an answer that was different from the majority but still correct, conformity levels dropped to 9%
- Asch concluded that it was breaking the group’s unanimity that was the major factor in conformity reduction
19
Q
variables affecting conformity - difficulty of the task
A
- Asch made the differences between the line length much smaller, the correct answer was less obvious and the task much more difficult
- level of conformity increased
- Lucas et al (2006) found that the influence of task difficulty is moderated by the self-efficacy of the individual
- when exposed to maths problems in a Asch style task, high self-efficacy participants (confident in their own ability) remained more independent than low self - efficacy participants, even under conditions of high difficulty tasks
- situational differences (task difficulty) and individual differences ( self efficacy) are both important in determining conformity
20
Q
limitation - Independent behaviour rather than conformity
A
- Only about ⅓ of the trials where the majority unanimously gave the same wrong answer produced a conforming response
- in ⅔ of these trails, participants resolutely stick to their original judgement despite being face with an overwhelming majority expressing a totally different view
- Asch believed that rather than showing human beings to be overly conformist, his study demonstrated a commendable tendency for participants to stick to what they believed to be the correct judgement i.e to show independent behaviour
21
Q
limitation- problems with determining group size
A
- Bond (2005) suggests a limitation of research into conformity is that studies have used only a limited range of majority size
investigators are quick to accept Asch’s conclusions that a majority size of three was sufficient, and therefore subsequent research using Asch’s procedure have used 3 as the maximum majority - no studies other that Asch have used a majority of greater than 9, the range of majority sizes is much narrower, typically between 2 and 4
- This means we know very little about the effect of larger majority sizes on conformity levels
22
Q
limitation -Asch’s research may be a “child of its time”
A
- It is possible that Asch’s finding are unique because the research took place in a particular period of US history when conformity was high
- In 1956, the US was in the grip of McCarthyism, a strong anti- communist period when people were scared to go against the majority and so were more likely to conform.
- Perris and Spencer attempted to repeat Asch’s study in the Uk in the 1980’s using students who were studying science and engineering.
- In their initial study, they obtained only one conforming response ouy of 396 trials where a majority unanimously gave the same wrong answer
- In a subsequent study, they used youths on probation and used probation officers as the confederates
- This time, they found similar levels of conformity to Asch’s study.
- This confirmed that conformity is more likely if the perceived cost of not conforming are high which would’ve been the case at the time of Asch’s study
23
Q
limitation of Asch’s study - lacks ecological validity
A
- Asch’s test of conformity, a line judgement task, is an artificial task, which does not reflect conformity in everyday life.
- Therefore, we are unable to generalise the results of Asch to other real life situations, such as why people may start smoking or drinking around friends, and therefore these results are limited in their application to everyday life.
24
Q
limitation of Asch’s study - cultural differences in conformity
A
- Research suggests that there are important differences in conformity and we might therefore expect different results, depending on the culture of the people we ask
- Smith et al (2006) analysed the results of Asch’s line study across a number of different cultures
- He found the average conformity rate across the different cultures was 31.8%.
- In more individualistic cultures, the conformity rate was about 25% whereas in more collective cultures, it was much higher at 37%.
- Markus and Kitayama (1991) suggest that a higher level of conformity arises in collectivist cultures because it is viewed more favourably, as a form of “social glue” that binds communities together
25
Q
what was the sample of Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment ?
A
Had 21 male university students who volunteered from a newspaper advert and were selected on physical and mental stability
26
Q
what was the aim of SPE ?
A
His aim was to see whether people would conform to the social roles of a prison guard or prisoner
27
Q
what was the procedure of SPE?
A
- He wanted to make the experience as realistic as possible, turning the basement of Stanford University into a mock prison
- The ‘prisoners’ were arrested by real local police and fingerprinted, stripped and given a numbered smocked to wear, with chains placed around their ankles
- The guards were given uniforms, dark reflective sunglasses, handcuffs an a truncheon
- The guards were instructed to run the prison without using physical violence
- The experiment was set to run for 2 weeks
28
Q
what were the findings of SPE?
A
- Zimbardo found that both the prisoners and guards quickly identified with their social roles
- Within days the prisoners rebelled, but this was quickly crushed by the guards, who then grew increasingly abusive towards the prisoners
- The guards dehumanised the prisoners, waking them during the night and forcing them to clean toilets with their bare hands; the prisoners became increasingly submissive, identifying further with their subordinate role
29
Q
what were the conclusions of the SPE?
A
- He concluded that people quickly conform to social roles, even when the role goes against their moral principles
- He concluded that situational factors were largely responsible for the behaviour found, as none of the participants had ever demonstrated these behaviours previously
30
Q
limitation of SPE - conformity to role is not automic
A
- Zimbardo believed that the guard’s drift into sadistic behaviour was an automatic consequence of them embracing their role, which in turn suppressed their ability to engage with the fact that what they were doing was wrong
- However, in the SPE, guard behaviour varied from being fully sadistic to, for a few, benign “good guards”
- These guards did not degrade or harass the prisoners and even did small favours for them
- Haslam & Reicher (2012) argue that this shows that the guards chose how to behave, rather than blindly conforming to their social role
31
Q
strength of the SPE - The SPE and its relevance to Abu Ghraib
A
- Zimbardo argues that the same conformity to social role effect that was evident in SPE was also present in Abu Ghraib, a military prison in Iraq, notorious for the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers in 2003 and 2004
- Zimbardo believed that the guards who committed the abuses were the victims of situations factors that made abuse more likely
- Zimbardo suggests that the situational factors such as lack of training, unrelenting boredom and no accountability to higher authorities were present in both SPE and Abu Ghraib
-these combined with an opportunity to misuse the power associated with the assigned role of “guard” led to the prisoner abuse in both situations
32
Q
limitation of the SPE - demand characteristics
A
- Banuazizi and Movehedi (1975) argued that the behaviour of participants in the SPE was more a consequence of demand characteristics (i,e participants guessing how the experimenter wanted them to behave) than conformity to the roles
- They presented some of the details of the SPE procedure to a large sample of students who had never heard of the study
- The vast majority of them correctly guessed that the purpose of the study was to show that ordinary people assigned to the role of guard or prisoner would act like real prisoners or guards
- They predicted that the guards would act in a hostile, domineering way and the prisoners would react in a passive way
- This suggests that the behaviour of Zimbardo’s study was not due the their response to a “compelling prison environment” but rather it was a response to powerful demand characteristics in the experimental situation itself
33
Q
limitation of SPE- ethical considerations
A
- Zimbardo’s study is often criticised for being unethical, despite the fact that it followed the guidelines of the Stanford University ethics committee that had approved it.
-Despite this, Zimbardo acknowledges that perhaps the study should have been stopped earlier as so many of the participants were experiencing emotional distress.
-He attempted to make amends for this by carrying out debriefing sessions for several years afterwards and concluded that there were no lasting negative effects - Recognising the potential for harm in studies such as this, Reicher and Haslam used the same basic setup as Zimbardo, but took greater steps to minimise the potential harm to their participants.- -They created a situation that was harsh and testing, but not harmful
34
Q
strength of SPE - led to change in ethical guidelines and the way those are treated
A
- It lead to change in the way that US prisoners are treated
- For example, juveniles accused of federal crimes are no longer housed before trial with adult prisoners (due to the risk of violence against them).
- to changes in the way that studies are conducted in terms of ethics, all experiments must go through an extensive review before it is conducted
35
Q
what is obedience and how is it different to conformity?
A
Obedience is a form of social influence in which an individual acts in response to a direct order from another person, who is usually an authority figure. It is assumed that without such an order, the person would not act in this way
Obedience is generally different to conformity because behaviour can be influenced by one authority figure, whereas conformity produces behaviour intended to match a majority.
36
Q
what is the background to Milgram’s experiment ?
A
- Stanley Milgram (1963) sought out an answer to the question of why the German population followed the orders of Hitler and slaughtered over 10 million members of certain social groups in the Holocaust
- Wanted to know if Germans were different - were they more obedient?
- His fist, original study is the one against which all the other variations are compared (baseline study)
37
Q
procedure for Milgram’s experiment
A
- Recruited 40 male participants (20-50 years old, jobs ranged from unskilled to professional) through newspaper adverts and flyers in the post
- A confederate “Mr Wallace” was always the “learner” and the true participant was the “teacher”
- Another confederate was also an “experimenter” dressed in a lab coat
- Participants were told that they could leave at any point
- Learner was strapped to a chair in another room with wired electrodes
- Participant was required to give the learner an increasingly severe electric shock each time the learner made a mistake on a learning task (task involved matching word pairs)
- The shocks were demonstrated to the teacher, therefore the shocks were not real
- Shock level started at 15 (labelled ‘slight shock’ on shock-metre) and rose through 30 levels to 450 volts (‘danger- severe shock’)
- At 300V (‘intense shock’) the learner pounded on the wall and then gave no response to the next question
- After 315V learner pounded on the wall again but after that there was no future response from the learner
38
Q
what were the findings of Milgram’s experiment?
A
- No participant stopped below 300V, 12.5% (5 participants) stopped at 300V, 65% continued to the 450 V
- Qualitative data was collected, such as observations that the participants showed signs of extreme tension; many of them were seen to “sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their lips, groan and dig their fingernails into their hands” three even had “full-blown uncontrollable seizures”
- Prior to the study, Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the participants behaviour- students estimated no more than 3% of participants would continue to 450 V (shows that the findings were not expected)
- All participants were debriefed and assured that their behaviour was entirely normal, also sent a follow up questionnaire- 845 said they felt glad to have participated
39
Q
what was the ethical guidance for Milgram?
A
- milgram was not breaking any ethical guidelines because there were no official guidelines
-it’s because of milgram and zimbardo that the guidelines were created - “Code of Ethics and Conduct - a participants right to withdraw from the research
-they need to get fully informed consent form the participant
the use of deception - the importance of protecting participants from the risk of psychological harm
40
Q
what was the de brief like for Milgram?
A
- Milgram carried out debriefing sessions with his participants- opportunity to explain the true purpose and what had really happened
- Also intended to make the participants feel better about their role, especially if they had been completely obedient throughout
Part of the debrief was a structured interview to ask about their experience - Also wanted to collect qualitative data about the reasons why participants obeyed or disobeyed
41
Q
limitation of Milgram - low internal validity
A
- Orne & Holland (1968) argued that participants behaved the way that they did because they didn’t really believe in the set up - they guessed it wasn’t a real electric shock
-If this is true, Milgram wasn’t testing what he intended to test- the study lacked internal validity - Gina Perry’s (2013) study confirms this - listened to taped of Milgram’s participants and reported that many of them expressed their doubts about the shocks
- However, Sheridan and King (1972) conducted a similar study were real shocks were given to a puppy - despite real shocks, 54% of male and 100% of female participants delivered what they thought were fatal shocks
- suggests that Milgram’s effects were genuine - Milgram himself reports 70% of participants said they believed the shocks were genuine
42
Q
strength of Milgram- good external validity
A
- Milgram’s study may at first appear to lack external validity because it’s conducted in a laboratory setting, but central feature was the relationship between the authority figure (experimenter) and the participant
- Milgram argued that the lab setting reflected wider authority relationships in real life
- Other studies support this - Hofling (1966) studied nurses on a hospital ward and found the levels of obedience tp unjustified demands by doctors were very high (21 out of 22 nurses obeyed)
- this suggests that the processes of obedience to authority that occurred in Milgram’s lab study can be generalised to other situations
43
Q
strength of milgram - historical validity - would the same thing happen today?
A
- We might be tempted to dismiss the relevance of Milgram’s study because it was carried out over 50 years ago, but what would happen in modern day society?
-Blass (1999) carried out a statistical analysis of obedience studies carried out between 1961 and 1985. By carrying out a correlational analysis relating each study’s year of publication and the amount of obedience it found, he discovered no relationship whatsoever i.e the later studies found no more or less levels of obedience than the ones conducted earlier.
-A more recent (Burger, 2009) found levels of obedience almost identical to those found by Milgram 46 years later - This suggests that Milgram’s findings still appear to apply as much today as they did back in the early 1960’s
44
Q
limitation of Milgram - location: high levels of obedience were not surprising
A
- Fromm (1973), claims that because Milgram’s subjects knew they were part of a scientific experiment, this made them more likely to obey than in real life
- In a laboratory setting, the experimenter acts as a representative of science, a prestigious institution in Western culture.
- Because of this, Fromm suggested that the high degree of obedience in the MIlgram experiment (65%) was less surprising than the 35% disobedience.
- In contrast to experiments that take place in scientific laboratories, real life obedience to authority (particularly destructive obedience) is a lot more difficult and time consuming to achieve
- Genocides such as the one witnessed in Rwanda in 1994 required years of manipulation of the masses and a systematic dehumanisation of the targeted groups
- As a result, we must be cautious about drawing broad generalisations from Milgram’s study, believing that the majority of people would commit crimes of obedience in real life
