Social Influence Studies Flashcards
Asch aim
To investigate whether people will conform to majority influence in an unambiguous situation
Asch setting
Lab
Asch sample
123 American male students
Asch task
Match line a, b, or c with line x. Naive participant always answered last/ penultimately in a group of 7 confederates who gave wrong answers in the 12 critical trials out of 18
Asch findings
- 25% did not conform at all
- 75% conformed at least once
- 36.8% of the time a wrong answer was given
Asch reasons for conformity
Distortion of action (and distortion of perception and distortion of judgement)
Asch conclusion
Even when a situation is unambiguous, people will still conform to a majority, which demonstrates the power of NSI
Asch type of procedure
Standardised
Asch evaluation ethical issue
Deception( weakness as reduces chance of replication so reduces reliability)
Asch evaluation weakness
Only used young American males (ethnocentric and androcentric, decreases population validity)
Asch evaluation strength
Lab setting (control extraneous variables increases control, increases internal validity)
Asch’s variations
Group size (3 confederates 31.8%), unanimity (25%), task difficulty (more conforming)
Zimbardo aim
To investigate whether brutality in American prisons was due to sadistic personalities (a dispositional explanation) or due to social roles (a situational explanation)
Zimbardo research method
Laboratory experiment
Zimbardo research design
Independent groups
Zimbardo independent variable
Role of the participants
Zimbardo sample
21 American male students
Zimbardo task
- Participants responded to an advert and then went through extensive psychological testing
- The roles of guard or prisoner were randomly allocated
- There were 10 guards and 11 prisoners
- The prisoners were arrested by the real local police, blindfolded, strip-searched, deloused and issued a number and uniform
- 9 prisoners were placed 3 to a cell and had a regular routine of shifts, meal times, visiting hours and time to visit the parole and disciplinary board, and the prison chaplain
Zimbardo findings- guards behaviour
- Slow start
- Then the guards settled quickly into their roles
- The guards crushed an early rebellion using fire extinguishers
- Then the guards started to become more and more sadistic
- The guards taunted the prisoners, gave them meaningless tasks to do and conducted frequent head counts (sometimes in the middle of the night)
- The guards created more opportunities to enforce the rules and punish the prisoners
- The experiment was meant to last 2 weeks but had to stop after 6 days
Zimbardo findings- prisoners behaviour
- There was an early rebellion; the prisoners ripped their uniforms, shouted and swore at the guards
- The prisoners then became subdued and depressed
- One prisoner was released on the first day and two more on the fourth day because they showed signs of psychological disturbance
- One prisoner went on hunger strike; the guards tried to feed him and punished him by putting him in a small, dark closet. He was looked down upon by the other prisoners
Zimbardo- reason it stopped early
In total 5 prisoners had to be released before the study finished due to psychological and physical harm- 3 had fits of fury and crying, 1 developed a rash due to not being allowed on parole
Zimbardo conclusion
People will readily conform to the social roles that they are expected to play, especially if those roles are strongly stereotyped (e.g. prison guards). The prison environment was an important factor in creating the guards’ brutal behaviour (none of the participants who acted as guards showed sadistic tendencies before the study). Therefore, the roles that people play can shape their behaviour and attitudes
Zimbardo strength research design
There are no order effects, so the experiment has high internal validity
Zimbardo strength research method
The conditions were highly controlled, making it feel more real to the prisoners (prisons are also highly controlled), so increasing external validity
Zimbardo evaluation ethical issue
Protection from harm- were put under more risk than they would in their everyday lives, reducing reliability as it is less likely to be replicated
Problem with Zimbardo’s role
He had a dual role as the prison warden and the overseer of the experiment, meaning that when participants came to him and asked to be let out (which was a right of theirs) his judgement was biased
Who recreated Zimbardo’s study and what happened?
Haslam and Reicher and the prisoners overthrew the guards
All ethical issues with Zimbardo
- Lack of fully informed consent
- No privacy
- No protection from harm
Zimbardo evaluation strength
Lab experiment- high control, no extraneous variables means high internal validity
Randomly assigned roles- increases likeliness that IV is affecting the DV, reduces researcher bias, means higher internal validity
Zimbardo evaluation weakness
All American, male students- ethnocentric and androcentric, age bias, means lower population validity
Zimbardo robin study
Orlando
Orlando aim
How conformity to social roles can influence people