Social Influence - Paper 1 Flashcards
What does social psychology examine human behaviour in terms of?
Relationships with other people, how we interact
How culture and society affects our behaviour
Conformity, why people conform, variations in conformity
Obedience, why people obey authority, variations
What do social psychologists believe in?
The effects of interaction between individuals
The effects of being in groups within society
The power of the social situation
What do social psychologists believe in?
The effects of interaction between individuals
The effects of being in groups within society
The power of the social situation
What is conformity?
When a person changes their attitude or behaviour due to ‘real’ or ‘imagined’ group pressure.
According to Kelman (1958) what are the 3 levels of psychology?
Compliance
Identification
Internalisation
What is compliance?
The lowest level of conformity. Here a person changes their public behaviour (the way they act) but not their private beliefs. This is usually a short term change.
What is identification?
The middle level of conformity. Here a person changes their public behaviour (the way they act) but not their private beliefs. This is usually a short term change.
What is internalisation?
The deepest level of conformity. Here a person changes both their public behaviour and their private beliefs. Usually a long term change.
What was Asch’s aim? (1951)
To see if participants conform to a majority influence in an unambiguous situation.
What was Asch’s procedure? (1951)
• Asch’s used 50 male college students in his first study.
• In the experiment room, seven male student participants looked at two cards: the test card showed one vertical line while the other card showed three vertical lines of different length.
• The participants called out in turn which of the three lines was the same length as the test line.
• All the participants were confederates except the one who sat second from last who was a real participant.
• Accomplices gave unanimous wrong answers on 12 of the 18 trials.
• These 12 trials were called the critical trials.
What were Asch’s results? (1951)
• Participants conformed to the unanimous incorrect answer 32% of critical trials.
• 74% conformed at least once
• 26% never confirmed
In post experiment interviews, some participants stated they actually believed the confederates were correct whereas others stated they changed their answer because they could not hear being in the minority and risk being ridiculed or excluded by the group.
What were Asch’s conclusions? (1951)
Even when the situation is unambiguous, people still conform to strong group pressure. Also, there appear to be different reasons for conforming - they wanted to fit in and be correct.
What was a strength of Asch’s research?
The results of this experiment have been replicated numerous times therefore this would increase the validity and reliability of the findings.
What were the limitations of Asch’s research?
• All participants were male college which is a limited sample, questioning generalisability.
• McCarthyism is practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means practise of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism.” This happened in the 1950s in America around the time of the Asch experiment. In social psychology, McCarthyism means that people will not speak out against a group because they are scared people will make accusations about them. Therefore, they will be more likely to conform or obey. This may influence the results of studies at the time of McCarthyism as the conformity of obedience rates may be higher than what they should be.
• The task was extremely artificial (mundane realism) therefore we would question how participants may perform in a more lifeline and realistic task.
• As the task was artificial, participants may have guessed the true aims of the experiment (demand characteristics). Results of poor experimental method.
• There are ethical issues with Asch’s expedient as participants were deceived believing their visual perception was being tested. May have caused psychological harm.
What is normative social influence?
When someone conforms because they want to be liked and accepted by the group.
They may publicly change their behaviour but privately disagree.
This type of social influence leads to compliance.
What is informational social influence?
When someone conforms because they do not know what to do, but they want to be correct. They follow the majority because they assume that the majority know what the right thing to do is.
This type of social influence tends to lead to internalisation and is most likely to happen when there is a crisis, the situation is ambiguous or where others are believed to be experts.
What are strengths of explanations of conformity?
• The idea of normative social influence is supported through Asch’s experiment as he found through follow-up interviews that participants conformed to avoid the discomfort of disagreeing.
• The idea of informational social influence is supported through Asch’s experiment as he found through follow up interviews that participants confirmed because they genuinely believed the confederates were correct.
What is a limitation of explanations for conformity?
• Sometimes both ISI and NSI work together as part of a dual process as people conform to be right because they want to be liked
• There way be alternative reasons why people are more likely to conform than others which may impact likelihood of social influence. This may come down to individual differences such as the person’s education, gender etc.
• Much of the research to support these ideas is conducted in artificial settings with artificial tasks therefore we can question validity in application to the real world as the research lacks validity in the real world.
• Individual differences may play a role in social influence as some people are less impacted by normative social influence due to their nature of non-conformity. These are known as non-affiliates (nAffiliators) who do not conform in situation of wanting to be liked.
• Other explanations such as social identity theory may have a stronger argument in particular circumstances as sometimes people change their behaviour because they identify themselves as part of the group and therefore perform group behaviours.
What is meant by deindividuation?
The process that occurs when one loses one’s sense of individual identity so that social, moral and societal constraints on behaviour are loosened.
What is a situational factor?
Any variable for the environment that may trigger or cause a change in behaviour.
What was Zimbardo’s aim? (1973)
To investigate how readily people would conform to new roles assigned to them.
What was Zimbardo’s procedure? (1973)
What were Zimbardo’s results? (1973)
• The guards harassed the prisoners and conformed to their perceived roles with such zeal that the study had to be discontinued after 6 days.
• The prisoners rebelled against the guards after 2 days, however the guards quelled the rebellion using fire extinguishers.
• Some of the prisoners became depressed and anxious causing mental breakdowns: 1 prisoner on the first day and 2 more on the fourth day.
• One prisoner went on hunger strike and the guards attempted to force-feed him however, when he refused, they placed him in a dark closet similar to solitary confinement known as ‘the hole’.
What were Zimbardo’s conclusions?
The situational factors of the prison environment played a crucial role in creating the guard’s brutal behaviour as none of them had shown these tendencies before the experiment. People will readily conform to social roles they are expected to play, especially if they are heavily stereotyped.
What are strengths of Zimbardo’s research?
There is clear application to Nazi Germany in concentration camps as Nazi soldiers conformed to their roles.
Additionally, there is also application to Abu Ghraib as Zimbardo claims the atrocities carried out there are a result of situational factors that caused the abuse of power in their role.
What are limitations of Zimbardo’s research?
Ethical issues as there was a lack of informed consent since participants were unaware they would be arrested at home. They were also deceived and not protected from harm as many became anxious and depressed with some experiencing mental breakdowns.
Zimbardo played a dual role (researcher and prison warden) and therefore his behaviour may have affected the way the experiment went (investigator effects) as there was conflict between being a researcher and protecting participants and the prison warden whose role was to reinforce guards
Demand characteristics as people could have guessed the aims and acted out their role more and it may not have been explicitly down to the social role.
Lack of ecological validity as the use of a mock prison means they may not have behaved naturally as if they were real prison guards in a real prison.
Issue with population validity as only males were used, we cannot be sure that women would act the same way
Research focuses on situation factors however ignores dispositional factors in affecting conformity as some people’s personalities and characteristics make them more likely to conform to social roles rather than situational factors.
What are the 3 variables affecting conformity?
Size of the group
Unanimity
Difficulty of the task
Describe how the size of the group affects conformity
Using same experimental method, Asch completed a number of variations where the size of the group playing an influence changed in size.
2 people=13%
3 or 4 people =33%
4 or 5 people=32%
When we report this, we say that group size affects conformity rates as the group gets larger, the conformity rates increase until we reach 5 people in the group. At this point, conformity rates plateu at 32%.
Describe how unanimity affects conformity
If someone else in the group agrees with you or disagrees with the group, you are less likely to conform. This was also tested in Asch’s line experiment with a variation on unanimity.
Asch found that conformity reduced to 5.5% when one of the confederates gave a different answer to the rest of the group that was correct.
Asch also found that conformity reduced to 9% when a confederate went against the majority but gave the other incorrect answer.
Describe how the difficulty of the task affects conformity
If the task is easy, we are less likely to look to others for guidance. If you are more confident, you are less likely to conform.
If the task is more difficult, we are more likely to conform. This is shown is Asch’s line experiment where Asch made the lines similar in length so the answer was less obvious. due to this being more difficult, conformity rates rose.
What are strengths of the variables affecting conformity?
These concepts are all supported by research conducted by Asch in variations of the line experiment.
What are the limitations of variables affecting conformity?
Research may have been affected by McCarthyism as people were scared to speak out against majority.
There are no studies on a majority size of a greater scale (larger than 15) which would mean we would question group behaviours in everyday situations.
We can’t be sure if the participants normally conform or rebel and therefore it’s hard to establish cause and effect
May have been demand characteristics if participants weren’t convincing enough and participants may have guessed aims and changed their natural behaviour.
What was Milgram’s (1963) aim?
To find out whether people obey an unjust order from a person of authority to inflict pain on another person.
What was Milgram’s (1963) procedure?
-40 male volunteers aged between 20 and 50
-conducted at Yale University
-participants were deceived and told it was a memory experiment, when it was an experiment to test obedience
-fixed draw, confederate always learner, participant always teacher
-learner had to memorise word pairs which he would be tested on
-teacher had to administer a shock every time learner was wrong
-shock generator had 30 levers
-participants watched confederate be strapped into a chair next door where electrodes were attached to his arm
-confederate informed experimenter he had a heart condition and the experimenter reassured him that this would not cause any serious harm
-teacher was given a 45v shock before experiment so they were aware of what they would be administering
- Milgram used standardised procedure as learner’s response was a tape recording so all participants reactions would be a result of the same stimuli
- confederate answered correctly and then began to make mistakes
- shocks went from 15v to 450v
- teacher encouraged shocks by giving verbal prods e.g ‘You have no other choice but to continue’
- participant continued until teacher refused to continue or until 450v were reached and given 4 times
- participant was debriefed and taken to meet learner to show they weren’t harmed
What were Milgram’s (1963) results?
100% went to 300v
65% went to 450v
Most participants found the experience stressful and wanted to stop, showing signs of anxiety. However whilst they dissented verbally, they continued with administering shocks
What was Milgram’s (1963) conclusion?
Under certain circumstances, most people will obey orders that go against conscience. When people occupy a subordinate position in a dominance hierarchy, they become liable to lose feelings of empathy, compassion and morality, and are inclined towards blond obedience.
What are strengths of Milgram’s experiment?
Controlled and standardised experiment, can establish cause and effect from obedience with conformity
Debriefed participants and made sure they weren’t harmed
What are limitations of Milgram’s experiment?
Lacks mundane realism as it isn’t natural everyday task, not entirely representative
Lacks ecological validity, prestigious Yale University and may have obeyed more
Lacks population validity, male volunteers 20-50
Demand characteristics, may have guessed aim
Lack of informed consent, told it was a memory experiment. Deception may have caused harm
Participants were prodded to continue, violating their right to withdraw
May have caused psychological harm due to nature of experiment as they may have felt like they actually killed someone, harm may have not been detected in debrief
What are the two explanations of obedience?
Legitimate authority
Agentic state
What is meant by legitimate authority?
Refers to natural hierarchal leverage a person has over others. e.g. teacher has legitimate authority over a student. In these cases people are more likely to obey. This person has particular leverage to reprimand the individual.
It requires a situation or institution to occur.
