Social Influence: Obedience - Social Support, LOC, Minority Influence, Social Change

Question 1

How Is Social Support Seen As An Explanation For Resistance Of Social Influence?

Answer 1

• People can resist the pressure to conform or obey if they have an ally (someone supporting their view).
• Builds confidence and allows them to remain independent.
• Individuals who have support no longer feel fear in being ridiculed allowing them to avoid normative social influence.
• They are more likely to disobey order.
• Social support allows individuals to act according to their own conscience and therefore resist social influence.

Question 2

Social Support In Asch’s Research.

Answer 2

• One variation a confederate were told to give the correct answer throughout.
• Rate of conformity dropped to 5%.
• Demonstrates that if participants have support for their belief they are more likely to resist the pressure to conform.

Question 3

Social Support In Milgram’s Research.

Answer 3

• One variation participant was paired with two confederates who also played the roles as the teacher.
• The two confederates refused to go on and withdrew from the experiment early.
• It dropped obedience of participants from 65% to 10%.
• Showed that if participants have support for their desire to disobey then they are more likely to resist the pressure of an authority figure.

Question 4

Social Support In Asch’s Research Evaluation: Supporting Evidence But Effects Not Long Lasting.

Answer 4

• There is evidence to show that social support impacts rates of conformity.
• In Asch’s study, one confederates were instructed to give the correct answer throughout, which caused conformity to drop to 5%.
• This demonstrates that if the participants have support for their belief (social support) then they are more likely to resist the pressure to conform.
• However, when the confederate starts to conform again so does the participants there show the effect is not long lasting.

Question 5

Social Support In Milgram’s Research Evaluation: Supporting Evidence.

Answer 5

• There is supporting evidence to show that social support impact the rate of obedience.
• In one variation participant was paired with two confederates who also played the roles as the teacher.
• The two confederates refused to go on and withdrew from the experiment early.
• It dropped obedience of participants from 65% to 10%.
• Shows that if participants have support (social support) for their desire to disobey then they are more likely to resist the pressure of an authoritarian figure.

Question 6

Social Support Evaluation: Strength - Can Be Effective Without Being Valid.

Answer 6

• Asch found that social support does not have to be valid to be effective.
• Even if another dissenter gives a wrong answer, it allows the participant to dissent too.
• Although the rate of conformity was at the lowest of 5.5% when the dissenter gave the correct answer, there was only 9% conformity when the dissenter gave another incorrect answer.
• This shows how powerful social support can be in helping people resist social influence.

Question 7

Social Support Evaluation: Strength - Research Support For Dissenting Peers In Resisting Obedience.

Answer 7

• There is research support for the role of dissenting peers in resisting obedience.
• Gamson et al asked participants to help produce evidence that would used to help an oil company run a smear campaign (a plan to discredit a public figure by making false accusations).
• They found higher level of resistance in their study as 88% rebelled.
• This was probably because the participants in Gamson’s study were in groups, showing that peer support is linked to greater resistance.

Question 8

How Is Locus Of Control Seen As An Explanation For Resistance Of Social Influence?

Answer 8

• It is the degree of control an individual feels they have over their own life and is measured used on a continuum from internal to external.
• Internals believe the things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves and therefore more likely to resist social influence because they take personal responsibility for their actions and base their decisions on their own beliefs. They are also more self confident and have higher intelligence and have less need for social approval.
• Externals believe things happen outside of their control and therefore are less likely to resist to social influence.

Question 9

LOC Evaluation: Strength - Supporting Evidence Of LOC And Obedience.

Answer 9

• There is supporting evidence that links LOC and resisting obedience.
• Holland repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured whether people were internal or external.
• He found that 37% of internals did not go to 450v whereas only 23% of externals did not.
• This shows that externals are less likely to resist social influence and that internals are more likely to resist social influence.

Question 10

LOC Evaluation: Weakness - Exaggerated Explanation.

Answer 10

• The role of LOC in resisting social influence may be exaggerated.
• Rotter found that LOC is only important when people are in a new situation.
• This is a limitation because it means LOC is only helpful in explaining a narrow range of new situations.
• This means that even if people have an internal LOC but have conformed/obeyed in a specific situation they are likely to do so again.

Question 11

LOC Evaluation: Contradictory Evidence.

Answer 11

• There is contradictory evidence for the role of LOC and resistance to social influence.
• Twenge et al analysed data from American locus of control studies over 40 years.
• They knew that the American public had become more independent over this time but people had became more external in their LOC.
• Although this challenges the link between internal LOC and increasing resistance behaviour, it is possible that other factors could have influenced the results.
• 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.

Question 12

What Is Minority Influence?

Answer 12

• A form of social influence in which a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.
• This is different from conformity where the majority is doing the influence.
• MI can lead to internalisation.
• Consists of consistency, commitment, flexibility and the process of change.

Question 13

Describe Moscovici Study On Minority Influence.

Answer 13

• Studied the process of minority influence with ‘blue slide, green slide’ study.
• Six people were asked to view 36 different blue coloured slides and state whether they were blue or green.
• In each group there were two confederates who consistently said that the slides were green 2/3 of the time. The participants gave the same wrong answer on 8.42% of the trials.
• A second group was exposed to an inconsistent minority and agreement fell to 1.25%.
• A control group was also carried out with no confederates. They got the wrong answer 0.25% of the trial.

Question 14

Minority Influence: Consistency.

Answer 14

• The consistency/ agreement in minority’s view increases the amount of interest of others.
• Synchronic consistency - they are all saying the same thing.
• Diachronic consistency - the consistency is over time.
• MI is more effective if they all all keep the same beliefs both overtime and between all the individuals.
• It is effective as it draws attention to the view.

Question 15

Minority Influence: Commitment.

Answer 15

• Sometimes they may engage in extreme activities to draw in attention to their views.
• Important that extreme activities are at some risk to the minorities because demonstrates commitment.
• MI is more powerful if a personal sacrifice is made.
• Effective because it shows the minority is not acting out of self interest.

Question 16

Minority Influence: Flexibility.

Answer 16

• Nemeth argued consistency can be interpreted negatively.
• Repeating the same argument may be sen as rigid and opinionated and inflexible, which is off-putting to the majority.
• Members should show some flexibility by preparing to adapt their point of view.
• Minority influence is more effective if the minority show flexibility by accepting the possibility of compromise.

Question 17

Minority Influence: The Process Of Change.

Answer 17

• Consistency, commitment and flexibility would make people think about the topic.
• This lead to deeper processing which is important in the process of conversion to the minority viewpoint.
• Overtime the is an increase in numbers of people switching/converting to majority to the minority position.
  . The snowball effect happens where there is a ripple effect of people changing pov.
• Gradually the minority view has become the majority.

Question 18

Minority Influence Evaluation: Strength - Research Support For Consistency.

Answer 18

• There is research evidence that demonstrates the importance of consistency in minority influence.
• Moscovici et al’s study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on conformity (8.2%) than an inconsistent opinion (1.25%).
• This shows that consistency is a major factor in minority influence.

Question 19

Minority Influence Evaluation: Weakness - Artificial Tasks.

Answer 19

• A limitation of MI 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 we do not know how MI works in real life social situations for example when a minority on a jury is trying to change people’s mind.

Question 20

Minority Influence Evaluation: Research Support For Internalisation.

Answer 20

• MI 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 beliefs if they they agree with the new point of view.

Question 21

Minority Influence Evaluation: Weakness - Limited Real World Applications.

Answer 21

• 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.
• However, real-life situations are much more complicated than this.
• There is more involved in the difference between a minority and majority than just numbers.
• For example majorities usually have more power and status than minorities and minorities are usually committed to their causes (often face very hostile opposition).
• This means changing views is much more complicated in real-life and research does not account for this.

Question 22

What Is Social Change?

Answer 22

• Process by which society changes it beliefs, attitudes and behaviours to create new social norms.
• It is a continual process which happens at gradual pace.
• MI main driving force but conformity and obedience can cause changes too.
• Majority influence (conformity and obedience) is what maintains the change.

Question 23

Social Change And Minority Influence Process.

Answer 23

1) They draw attention by getting the majority to focus on an issue.
2) The minority is then influential because they express the consistency of their position over time.
3) This causes deeper processing of the issue because people who had accepted the status quo (social norms) begin to question their beliefs.
4) This leads to augmentation principle the majority begins to pay even more attention because the minority is willing to suffer for their views and are seen as more committed so are taken more seriously.
5) Results into snowball effect where the minority initially have a small impact but this spreads more widely and more and more people consider the issue.
6) Then eventually the minority viewpoint becomes the majority which leads to social cryptomnesia which is where people have that social change occurred but can’t remember how it happened.

Question 24

Conformity Creating Social Change.

Answer 24

• Dissent has the potential to lead to social change.
• By breaking the power of the majority, dissenters encourage other dissenters.
• Environmental and health campaigns exploit conformity by appealing to informative social influence.
• They provide information on what other people are doing to get people to change their behaviour.

Question 25

Conformity Maintaining Social Change.

Answer 25

• People may conform to the new norms via compliance.

- They want to be able to fit in with people around them - normative social influence.

Question 26

Obedience Creating Social Change.

Answer 26

• Obedience has the potential to lead to social change.
• Milgram’s research shows how disobedient role models meant that the real participants also disobeyed
• Can also lead to social change through the process of gradual commitment.
• Once a small instruction is obeyed it becomes more difficult to resist a bigger one

Question 27

Obedience Maintaining Social Change.

Answer 27

• A new social norm may have laws and rules put in place to ensure that people obey the new attitudes and behaviour.

Question 28

Social Influence And Social Change Evaluation: Strength - Research Support Normative Influence.

Answer 28

• There is research support for normative influences in social change.
• Nolan et al hung messages on front doors for a month that suggested that residents were trying to reduce their energy use.
• A control group had messages that asked them to save energy but did not mention other people’s behaviour.
• There were significant decreases in energy usage in the first group showing that conformity can lead to social change through normative social influence.

Question 29

Social Influence And Social Change Evaluation: Moscovici And Mackie (CW).

Answer 29

• Moscovici’s conversion explanation of minority influence argues that minority and majority influence involve different cognitive processes.
• Minority influence is thought to cause individuals to think more deeply about an issue than majority influence.
• Mackie disagrees and presents evidence that majority influence may create deeper processing if you do not share the same view.
• This is because we like to believe that other people share out views and think in the same way as us.
• When we find that the majority of people believe something different to us, then we are forced to think long and hard about their arguments and reasoning.
• This means the central element of the process of minority influence has been challenged and incorrect.

Question 30

Social Influence And Social Change Evaluation: Limitation - Lack Of Validity.

Answer 30

• Explanations of how social influence leads to social change draw heavily upon the studies of Moscovici, Asch and Milgram.
• All of these studies have been criticised for lacking validity, both internal and external, due to the artificial nature of the tasks that were involved.
• This can undermine the link that has been suggested between social influence processes and social change due to questionable supporting evidence.

Question 31

Social Influence And Social Change Evaluation: Weakness - Slow Process.

Answer 31

• Social changes happen slowly when they happen at all.
• For example, it has taken decades for attitudes against drink-driving and smoking to shift.
• This suggests that the effects of minority influence including consistency, commitment and flexibility may be weaker than first thought.
• This in turn limits the use of minority influence in explaining social change.