Social influences

Question 1

Types of conformity (4)

Answer 1

• Conformity = Falling into group pressure (majority influence.)
• Compliance = Publicly going along with majoirty influence and beliefs to gain approval but not changing private beliefs.
• Identification = Public and privately acceptance of majority influence, through adoption of the beliefs.
• Internalisation = Public and private acceptance of majority influence, through adoption of the majority group’s belief system.

Question 2

Explanations for conformity (2)

Answer 2

Informational social influence = Informational social influence is where a person conforms because they have a desire to be right, they follow the people around themselves’ opinions and beliefs.

Normative social influence = Motivational force to be liked and accepted by a group of people.

Question 3

Asch (1955) Line study

Answer 3

Procedure: In Asch’s study there were 5-7 participants per group. Each group was presented with a standard line and three comparison lines. Participants had to say aloud which comparison line matched the standard line in length. In each group there was only one real participant the remaining 6 were confederates. The confederates were told to give the incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trails.

Results: Real participants conformed on 32% of the critical trials where confederates gave the wrong answers. Additionally, 75% of the sample conformed to the majority on at least one trial.

Question 4

Eval Asch line study

Answer 4

Evaluation of this study:

Lacks ecological validity, this was done in such an environment where it was known it was an experiment and not a real-life experience where conformity could be tested, so it doesn’t reflect how conformity happens in everyday life.

Sampling issues, this experiment was only done on men which means there is sampling bias thus can’t be related to women as there might be different results.

Lack of informed consent, people didn’t get told exactly what was going on which means they didn’t make informed consent. After the experiment when they found out the real aims of the experiment, they could have felt embarrassed or suffered from psychological harm, but he did do a debrief of the study with participants after.

Question 5

Conformity to social roles

Answer 5

Social roles are the part people play as members of a social group.

Question 6

Stanford Prison experiment Zimbardo

Answer 6

Zimbardo made a fake artificial prison situation. His students were randomly assigned to either the role.
Prisoners were dehumanised and referred to as their numbers and the guards were equipped with handcuffs etc.
Zimbardo observed their behaviours.
Findings: Quickly they fulfilled their roles. Within hours of beginning the experiment some guards started to abused their power and harass the prisoners. They acted sadistic and brutal towards prisoners.
The prisoners also followed this and acted in their roles, they talked about prison matters. As the prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive.

Question 7

stanford PE eval

Answer 7

Demand characteristics and low ecological validity, because the guards and prisoners were playing a role their behaviour may not be influenced by the same factors which affect behaviour in real life. Its hard to generalise to real life as they were just acting.

It also lacks population validity as it only comprised of American male students. The culture in American can differ from other cultures, so people may act differently or not conform due to the norms of their culture.

The ethics of the experiment also has been questioned as it lacked fully informed consent from the participants. They also didn’t consider the psychological harm this could of did to the participants due to all the humiliation and distress.

Question 8

Obedience definition

Answer 8

Obedience is a type of social influence where a person follows an order from another person who is usually an authority figure.

Question 9

Milgram’s shock study… why did he do it?

Answer 9

Milgram wanted to know why Germans were willing to kill Jews during the Holocaust. He thought that it might have been because German’s were just evil. He thought that Americans were different and would not have followed such orders. To test this ‘German’s are different’ hypothesis he carried out this study.

Milgram wanted to see if people would obey legitimate authority figures when given instructions to harm another human being.

Question 10

Milgram shock study procedure

Answer 10

He conducted a lab experiment in which two participants were assigned either the role of a teacher or learner.

The teacher and learner were put into separate rooms. The teacher was then asked by the experimenter (who wore a lab coat) to administer electric shocks (which were actually harmless) to the learner each time he gave the wrong answer. These shocks increased every time the learner gave a wrong answer, from 15 - 450 volts.

When the learner was reluctant to continue, they were urged on by authority figures, ‘it is essential that you continue.’

Results: The results were that all participants went to 300 volts and 65% were willing to go all the way to 450 volts. Milgram did more than one experiment – he carried out 18 variations of his study.

Question 11

Milgram shock study eval

Answer 11

Lacks ecological validity, carried out in a lab under artificial conditions. Which means it can’t be related to real life conditions.

Sample is biased, only using males in the study, results cant be generalised to females too.

It highlights that everyone can be blind to obedience, it wasn’t just germans who were involved in the war.

Because it was a lab experiment, it can be repeated as they did a certain procedure.

Question 12

Milgram ethical issues

Answer 12

Deception = The participants thought they were causing harm to another person; they were unaware it was a confederate. However, for the experiment to work, this had to happen according to Milgram.

Protection of participants = They were exposed to a stressful situation which could have led to psychological harm. Many of the participants were visibly distressed.

HOWEVER, he did debrief the participants after and told them the true aim to ensure there was no harm.

Question 13

Agentic state

Answer 13

When people obey authority, they believe that the authority will take responsibility for their actions.

Many of the participants in Milgram’s experiment continued after the authority figure said they would take responsibility.

Question 14

Legitimacy of authority figure

Answer 14

People tend to obey others if they recognise their authority as morally right and / or legally based (i.e. legitimate). This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school and workplace.

Question 15

Situational factors

Answer 15

The Milgram experiment was carried out many times where the dependent variable was changed.

Obedience was measured by how many participants shocked to the maximum 450 volts (65% in the original study).

Question 16

Authority wearing uniform

Answer 16

If the experimenter wore a lab coat, which gave him high status, but when the experimenter dressed in everyday clothes obedience was very low.

Question 17

Status of location

Answer 17

Milgram’s experiment was done at prestigious university, the status gave the study credibility and respect from the participants which made them more likely to obey. However, when they moved the experiment to a ran down building, obedience dropped to 47.5%

Question 18

Proximity of authority figure

Answer 18

People are more likely be obey an authority figure who is in close proximity (i.e. nearby). In Milgram’s study the experimenter was in the same room as the participant (i.e. teacher).

When the experimenter instructed and prompted the teacher by telephone from another room, obedience fell to 20.5%.

Question 19

Resistance to social influence: Social support.

Answer 19

In one of Asch’s experimental variations, he showed that the presence of a dissident (a confederate who did not conform) led to a decrease in the conformity levels in true participants.

Social support also decreases obedience to authority. In a variation of Milgram’ study two other participants (confederates) were also teachers but refused to obey. Confederate 1 stopped at 150 volts and confederate 2 stopped at 210 volts. The presence of others who are seen to disobey the authority figure reduced the level of obedience to 10%.

Question 20

Locus of control

Answer 20

The term ‘Locus of control’ refers to how much control a person feels they have in their own behaviour. A person can either have an internal locus of control or an external locus of control.

Internal locus of control = You feel like you are responsible for the things which happen around you. Personal control

External locus of control = You believe things happen to you, luck, external influences etc.

Research has shown that people with an internal locus of control tend to be less conforming and less obedient. Better at resisting social pressure to conform or obey.

Question 21

Minority influence

Answer 21

Minority influence occurs when a small group (minority) influences the opinion of a much larger group (majority). This can happen when the minority behaves in the following ways:

Consistency = Moscovici stated that being consistent and unchanging in a view is more likely to influence the majority than if a minority is inconsistent and chops and changes their mind.

Question 22

Moscovici colour slides experiment

Answer 22

Moscovici conducted an experiment in which female participants were shown 36 blue slides of different intensity and asked to report the colours. There were two confederates (the minority) and four participants (the majority).

In the first part of the experiment the two confederates answered green for each of the 36 slides. They were totally consistent in their responses. In the second part of the experiment, they answered green 24 times and blue 12 times. In this case they were inconsistent in their answers. A control group was also used consisting of participants only – no confederates.

Findings: When the confederates were consistent in their answers about 8% of participants said the slides were green. When the confederates answered inconsistently about 1% of participants Said the slides were green.

Question 23

Consistency (MI)

Answer 23

1. Confronted with a consistent opposition, members of the majority will sit up, take notice, and rethink their position (i.e. the minority focuses attention on itself).
2. A consistent minority disrupts established norms and creates uncertainty, doubt and conflict. This can lead to the majority taking the minority view seriously. The majority will therefore be more likely to question their own views.

Question 24

MI tactics

Answer 24

Commitment = When the majority is confronted with someone with self-confidence and dedication to take a popular stand and refuses to back own, they may assume that he or she has a point.

Flexibility = A few researchers have questioned whether consistency alone is sufficient for a minority to influence a majority. They argue that the key is how the majority interprets consistency. However, if they appear flexible and compromising, they are likely to be seen as less extreme, as more moderate, cooperative and reasonable. As a result, they will have a better chance of changing majority views.

Social change = Social change occurs when a whole society adopts a new belief or behaviour which then becomes widely accepted as the ‘norm’ which was not before. Social influence processes involved in social change include minority influence (consistency, commitment and flexibility), internal locus of control and disobedience to authority.

Question 25

Crypto Amnesia

Answer 25

Crypto Amnesia = The majority opinion then becomes law, and people have to obey this law. Once this happens, the minority opinion has become the dominant position in society, and people do often not even remember where the opinion originated from.