social influence studies Flashcards
aim of mosovici et al
to investigate the effect of a consistent and inconsistent minority on majority beliefs
conclusion of mosovici et al
although minority influence is small consistency is an important variable
evaluation mosovici et al
- doesn’t identify important factors in minority influence such as group size, status or degree of organization
- only used females
aim of milgram
to investigate how far people will go in obeying an authority figure
milgram proximity condition
40% went to 300v
milgram vocal feedback condition
62.5% to 300v when verbal protestations, screams, wall pounding and ominous silence after 300v
Bickman
80% obeyed by picking up litter when dressed as guard 40% when dressed normally
subjects of milgram
self selected volunteer sample - 636
- women showed similar levels of obedience to men
- cross cultural showed equal or higher levels
Hofling
- 21/22 nurses obeyed unknown doctors phone instructions to administer twice normal dose of drugs when there was clear warnings on drugs not too
- completed in real life work condition
zimbardo participants
24 American undergraduate volunteers
zimbardo public conformity conclusion
many said after that they thought they had acted out of character and was no lasting change to private opinion
zimbardo supports situational explamations
personality tests were done on both guards and prisoners and found no sig personality differences
ash order of answers
real p always went last or last but one
critical trials asch
12/18 critical trials confederate p’s gave same wrong answer
*control group where p gave answers in isolation
findings of asch
- control 0.7% wrong answer
- critical trials conformed to maj wrong answer 37%
- 75%conformed atleast once
asch’s study and situational factors
- group size
- social support
- task difficulty
group size
- 2 confeds: 14% conformed
- 3 confeds: 32% conformed
- little change after
- small maj are easier to resist BUT doesn’t keep increasing with size of maj
social support
having a supported reduced conformity to 5.5%
task difficulty
conformity increases with task difficulty
aim of jennes
investigate whether individual judgements of jellybeans in a jar was influenced by discussion in groups
jennes findings
- individuals estimates moved towards group estimate on second private estimate
- ave change of opinion greater in women
jennes conclusions
- individual judgements are affected by majority opinion espesh when in unfamiliar situation
- discussion isn’t effective in changing maj opinion unless individs who enter discussion are aware that their opinions differ to others
