social influences Flashcards

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1
Q

what is social psychology?

A

studies of people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour, how they are affected by the presence of others.

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2
Q

what is conformity?

A

yielding (giving in) to a group pressure

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3
Q

who came up with the types of conformity?

A

Herbert Kelman

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4
Q

what are the three types of conformity?

A

-compliance
-identification
-internalisation

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5
Q

what is compliance?

A

this when you go along with what other are doing to simply fit in.
Public but not private acceptance

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6
Q

what is identification?

A

changing behaviour publicly to fit in with a group however is not maintained when individuals leave the group
e.g. uniform

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7
Q

what is internalisation?

A

when a person genuinely believes and accepts a group norm.
Public and private acceptance, beliefs become part of how they think
e.g. religion

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8
Q

what is yielding to group pressure called?

A

majority influence

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9
Q

what were the variables within Asch’s study?

A

•group size
•unanimity
•task difficulty

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10
Q

what were the limitations to Asch’s study?

A

•participants were all American males
•America is an individualist society in contrast to China which is collectivist society

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11
Q

what were the strengths of Asch’s study?

A

•other studies have found the same about task difficulty (Lucas et al) found with increased difficulty maths problems, conformity increased
•individual level factor can influence conformity

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12
Q

how did Asch vary group size?

A

He varied number of confederates from 1 to 15. There was a curvilinear relationship, the more confederates there were, the more likely the participant was to conform - to a point. With 3 confederates the incorrect answer rose to 38.1%, however more confederates made little difference

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13
Q

how did Asch investigate unanimity?

A

Asch introduced a non-conforming person and the genuine participant conformed less often.

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14
Q

How did Asch investigate task difficulty?

A

Asch found when he made the task harder, conformity increased. This is because it is more ambiguous so people look to those around them for guidance

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15
Q

what does the findings from unanimity suggest?

A

The influence of a majority depends to a large extent on it being unanimous. Non conformity is more likely to appear when there are cracks in the views of the majority

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16
Q

what do the findings from group size suggest?

A

Most people are sensitive to the views of others as it didn’t take many confederates for them to conform

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17
Q

how many students participated in the study?

A

123 male students

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18
Q

how many trials were there?

A

Each participant completed 18 trials and the confederates gave the same incorrect answers on 12 trials, called critical trials.

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19
Q

what were the findings of the study?

A

•real participants confirmed to the incorrect answers on 36.8% of the critical trails
•75% of the participants conformed to at least 1 of the critical trials and 25% of the participants never conformed
•Asch used a control group, he found that less than 1% of the participants gave an incorrect answer

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20
Q

What did the participants
reveal when Asch interviewed them
after?

A

Most said they knew their answers were incorrect, but went along with the group in order to fit in, or because they thought they would be ridiculed.

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21
Q

What were the conclusions of the study?

A

•Individuals judgement are affected by majority influence.
• The participants conformed due to normative social influence and the desire to fit in and avoid rejection.

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22
Q

What does GRAVE stand for?

A

•Generalisability
•Reliability
•Applicability
•Validity
•Ethics

23
Q

Who invented the two process model?

A

Deutsch and Gerrard (1955)

24
Q

What were the two main reasons Deutsch and Gerrard said people conform?

A

•the need to be right
•the need to be liked

25
Q

What is
Informational
Social Influence
(ISI)?

A

When someone is influenced because they look to others for guidance

26
Q

What type of process is ISI?

A

a cognitive process

27
Q

When does ISI occur?

A

• in an ambiguous situation
• in times of crisis
•if there is believed to be an expert in the group

28
Q

What type of conformity does
ISI link to?

A

internalisation

29
Q

What is Normative Social Influence (NSI)?

A

Wanting to be deemed acceptable and part of a group

30
Q

What type of process is NSI?

A

emotional process

31
Q

When does NSI occur?

A

In a stressful situation and when in need of social support.

32
Q

What type of conformity does
NSI link to?

A

compliance

33
Q

How does Asch’s study link to ISI?

A

when the task was made more difficult, conformity increased as people were unsure of their own answers.

34
Q

How does Asch’s study link to NSI?

A

When people were
interviewed at the end of the study a number of people said they agreed with the group because they wanted to fit in.

35
Q

What is conformity to social roles?

A

Social roles are the parts people play as members of various social groups.
There is considerable pressure to conform to the expectations of a social role.

36
Q

What type of conformity is conforming to social roles?

A

Identification- a person changes their public behaviour and private beliefs, but only when they are in a particular social role.

37
Q

What did Zimbardo research?

A

The Stanford Prison Experiment

38
Q

What were the aims of Zimbardo’s study?

A

To investigate how readily people would conform to the social roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life.
•Wanted to examine whether the behaviour displayed was due to internal dispositional factors or external dispositional factors.

39
Q

What was the procedure of Zimbardo’s study?

A

•He converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison.
•Advertised for 21 male students to play the roles of prisoners and guards for a fortnight.
•Participants were randomly assigned. •Prisoners were blindfolded, strip-searched, de-loused, issued a uniform and referred to by their number only.
•Guards were issued a khaki uniform, whistles, handcuffs and dark glasses to make eye contact impossible.
•Guards worked shifts of 8 hours each.
•No physical violence was permitted •Zimbardo was the prison warden and the researcher.

40
Q

What were the findings of Zimbardo’s study?

A

•Following a rebellion by the prisoners, the guards and prisoners settled into their new roles.
• Some guards began to harass prisoners. They behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner, apparently enjoying it.
• Prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behaviour.
•As the prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive and assertive.
•Prisoners were
dependent on the guards so they tried to find ways to please them.
•Guard behaviour became a threat to the prisoners’ psychological and physical health and the study was stopped after 6 days instead of 14.

41
Q

What were the conclusions of Zimbardo’s study?

A

•Zimbardo conceded that people quickly conform to social roles, even when the role goes against their moral principles.
•Situational factors were largely responsible for the behaviour found, as none of the participants had ever demonstrated these behaviours previously.

42
Q

What is social influence?

A

the process by which individuals and groups change each others attitudes and behaviours

43
Q

What is obedience?

A

when an individual follows a direct order from a person who is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour does not occur

44
Q

What is destructive obedience?

A

when an individual obeys an order to do something immoral, which causes the individual carrying out the order distress and regret

45
Q

What was the aim of Milgram’s experiment?

A

•Milgram wanted to know if the Germans were different, and more obedient to authority figures, than people in other countries
•Also wanted to find out if ordinary American citizens would obey an unjust order from an authority figure and inflict pain on

•Also wanted to find out if ordinary American citizens would obey an unjust order from an authority figure and inflict pain on another person because they were instructed to

46
Q

What was the procedure of Milgram’s study?

A

•40 male participants from a range of occupations and backgrounds
•all volunteers who
responded to an advert in the local paper to take part in an experiment on
“punishment and learning”
•In a lab at Yale university
• On arrival met with the experimenter and another participant (Mr Wallace)
who were both confederates
•one person was the teacher and the other the learner
•real participant always assigned role of the teacher •teacher watched the learner being strapped to an electric chair and given a sample electric shock
•learner was not actually strapped to the chair and gave predetermined answers to the test
•teacher read the learner a series of word pairs and test their recall
•learner was positioned in an adjacent room
•teacher instructed to administer a shock ever time the learner made a mistake and increase the voltage after each mistake
•as electric shocks increased, learners screams became more dramatic

•experiment continued until the teacher refused to continue or 450 volts was reached
•if the teacher tried to stop the experiment, the experiment would
respond with a series of prods like “the experiment requires that you continue”

47
Q

What were the findings of
Milgram’s study?

A
48
Q

What were the conclusions of Milgram’s study?

A
49
Q

What are situational variables?

A

features of an environment that impact the degree to which individuals obey

50
Q

What is proximity?

A

the physical closeness or distance of an authority figure to the person they are giving an order to

51
Q

What is location?

A

the place where an order is being placed. The status or prestige of the place can impact on obedience

52
Q

What is uniform?

A

the clothes an authority figure wears that symbolise their position of authority

53
Q

Who supports uniform as a situational variable?

A

Bickman