Social Influences

Question 1

Conformity: What was Asch’s baseline procedure and findings ?

Answer 1

- 123 white male participants
-Groups of 6-8 with only 1 naive participant
-Asked to match their line to one of the same length out of 3 on a separate sheet of paper
-All or all but one confederates go first giving the wrong answer
-36.8% conformed
-25% did not confirm once

Question 2

Conformity: What were Asch’s variations findings and conclusions?

Answer 2

-Group size: varied the number of confederates from 1 to 15
-Conformity increased with group size up to 3 confederates (31.8%) then levelled off (curvilinear relationship)
People are sensitive to others opinions (1 or two others was enough to significantly sway opinions)
-Unanimity: introduced a disender to give a different (sometimes also wrong) answer
-Conformity decreased to less than a quarter of what it had been even when the dissender and pp disagreed
-Majority influence depends on unanimity
-Task difficulty: made the lines more similar in size
-Conformity increases
-People will conform because they want to be right (ISI)

Question 3

Conformity: Evaluate asch’s research

Answer 3

-Artificial stimuli
>can’t be generalised to real-world situations
> demand characteristics

-All american men
> can’t be generalised
> US is an individualist culture
> studies conducted in collectivist cultures have high conformity rates

+Research support
> lukas et al did the same thing with maths problems
> participants conformed when maths questions got harder
CA: conformity may be more complex than Asch thought.
> more confident people conformed less
(e.g. If you study maths you are more likely not to conform as you have better confidence)
> Individual-level factor can influence conformity

-Ethical issues
> PP were technically deceived

Question 4

What are the three types of conformity?

Answer 4

• Internalisation: when a person accepts a group of people’s ideals and behaviours as there own resulting in a private change of belief and public change of behaviour
• Identification: conforming to a group because you value them in some way. This may result in a public change of behaviour and opinions but not private
• Compliance: ‘going along with it’ publicly but not privately. The compliance stops as soon as the perceived pressure is gone.

Question 5

Explanations of conformity: What is Normative social influence?

Answer 5

Conforming to gain social approval (need to be liked)

Question 6

Explanations of conformity: What is Informational social influence?

Answer 6

Conforming because you don’t want to be wrong (need to be right)

Question 7

Evaluate the explanations of conformity

Answer 7

+Research support (NSI)
> Asch’s research
> some conformed bc they felt self-conscious giving the correct answer, were afraid of disapproval
> conformity fell when participants wrote answer down

+Research support (ISI)
> Lukas
> when maths question were hard situation became ambiguous, so relied on answer they were given
CA: results could have been because of ISI or NSI so differentiating doesn’t matter (hard to separate both processes as both probably operate together in most real-world situations)

-Doesn’t account for conformity in every case
>nAffiliators (McGhee and Teevan: nAffiliators are more likely to conform)

Question 8

Social roles: What was Stanford’s prison experiment?

Answer 8

• Wanted to know why prison guards behave brutally (personalities or social role?)
• 21 emotionally stable male american volunteers
• Randomly assigned prisoner or guard
  Prisoner: uniforms (loose smock, cap) and identified by a number (causing deindividualization), had to ‘apply for parol’ to withdraw
  Guards: uniform (wooden clubs, mirror shades, handcuffs)
• prisoners & guards both encouraged to conform to social roles through uniform and instructions on behaviour

Question 9

Social roles: What were the findings of the Stanford prison experiment?

Answer 9

• After 2 days, the prisoners rebelled. - Guards responded using fire extinguishers
• Guards harassed prisoners to remind them of their powerlessness
• Prisoners became subdued, depressed and anxious
• One prisoner was released after 2 days because of psychological disturbance
• The experiment ended after 6 days instead of the originally planned 14

Question 10

Social roles: Evaluate stanford prison experiment

Answer 10

+It was well controlled
> internal validity
> randomly allocation ruled out personality differences

-Demand characteristics
> prisoners knew it was fake and may have acted as ‘stereotypes’
CA: they acted as if it was real

-Power of social influence may have been exaggerated
> only ⅓ of the guards acted in a brutal manner

Question 11

Obedience: What was Milgram’s baseline procedure and findings?

Answer 11

• To assess obedience levels
  **- 40 American male volunteers
• Partnered with a confederate
• Drew fixed lots to see who would be teacher (T) and learner (L) (real participants were always T)
• They asked the confederates questions and everytime they got one wrong they had to shock the L with an increasing amount of voltage starting at 15v up to 450**
• 12.5% (5) of participants stopped at 300v. 65% went all the way to 450v
• Showed signs of anxiety stress and even seizures

Question 12

Obedience: Evaluate Milgram’s research

Answer 12

+Findings were replicated by a french documentary about reality TV
> supports Milgram’s original findings about obedience to authority

-Demand characteristics
> Perry’s research (listened to milgram’s tapes) shows only about ½ of the participants believed the shocks were genuine
> low internal validity
CA: Sheridan and King conducted a similar study using a puppy. 54% of men and 100% of women gave what they thought was a fatal shock
-Milgram may be wrong about ‘blind obedience’
>participants obeyed when given verbal cues where they could identify with the aims (SIT) but not when told to blindly obey
-Ethical issues
> participants were technically deceived but were also debriefed.

Question 13

Obedience: What were Milgram’s situational variables, findings, and conclusions?

Answer 13

- Proximity: touch: participants had to move the confederated hand onto the shock plate if they disobeyed
- Obedience dropped to 30%
- Sight: participants could see the confederate being shocked
- Obedience dropped to 40%
Remote instruction: experimenter wasn’t in the room and gave instructions over a speaker
- Obedience dropped to 20.5%
- Decreased proximity allows psychological distancing from the consequences of our actions
- Location: experiment was conducted in a rundown office building instead of yale uni labs
- Obedience dropped to 47.5%
- The experiment had lower legitimacy of authority
- Uniform: the experimenter was replaced by a ‘regular member of the public’
- Obedience dropped to 20% (lowest it ever got)
- Uniform is a widely accepted symbol of authority

Question 14

Obedience: Evaluate Milgram’s situational variables

Answer 14

+Research support
> Bickman had 3 confederates dresses as a milkman, business man, and security guard ask passers by to complete simple tasks like pick up litter
> Security guard was most obeyed

+Cross cultural replication
> replicated with dutch participants
CA: mostly replicated in countries with similar cultures and attitudes to authority to the USA

-Participants may have been responding to demand characteristics
> may have known it was fake (especially uniform)

Question 15

Situational explanations: What is the agentic state

Answer 15

When a person doesn’t feel responsible for their actions because they feel they have no other choice. They may face moral strain but feel powerless to disobey.

Question 16

Situational explanations: What is the autonomous state

Answer 16

When a person feels responsible for their actions because they feel they are acting of their own free will.

Question 17

Situational explanations: What is the agentic shift

Answer 17

When a person goes from the autonomous state to the agentic state often because of someone higher in the social hierarchy

Question 18

Situational explanations: What are binding factors

Answer 18

Factors in a situation that allow someone to stay in the agentic state and reduce moral strain, e.g., by victim blaming

Question 19

Situational explanations: What is the legitimacy of authority?

Answer 19

When a person only has authority in certain locations or contexts, e.g., a teacher only has authority in a classroom

Question 20

Situational explanations: What is destructive authority?

Answer 20

When authority is used for destructive purposes like ordering people to behave in cruel ways

Question 21

Evaluate situational explanations of obedience

Answer 21

+Research support from Milgram’s own study
-The agentic state does not explain all obedience/ disobedience
> Rank and Jacobson had doctors order 18 nurses to give patients an overdose of a drug to a patient. 16 disobeyed

+Legitimacy of authority explains cultural differences

-Legitimacy of authority cant explain disobedience in established hierarchies
> rank and Jacobson

Question 22

Disposition factors: What is an authoritarian personality?

Answer 22

When a person has an extreme respect for people they view as higher on the social hierarchy (and are therefore obedient), look down on people lower on the social hierarchy as weak, have a very black and white way of thinking and inflexible views.

Question 23

Disposition factors: What are the origins of an authoritarian personality

Answer 23

• An unusually strict childhood and conditional love.
• It is a psychodynamic explanation as childhood experiences are affecting behaviour

Question 24

Disposition factors: What was Adorno et al’s research?

Answer 24

• More than 2000 middle- class white Americans were tested for their unconscious bias toward ethnic groups using several measures including the F-scale.
• People who scored high on the F-scale (high prejudice) had authoritarian personalities.

Question 25

Disposition factors: Evaluate authoritarian personalities and Adornos research

Answer 25

+Research support
> milgram and elms interviews the most obedient participants of milgram’s study and found they scored higher on the F-scale than other participants
CA: they did not display all the signs of authoritarian personalities e.g. not having an unusually strict childhood or idolising there father

-Can’t explain obedience in a whole country
> a more likely reason for obedience in nazi Germany is that the people identified with some of the nazi’s views (social identity theory [SIT])

-Politically bias
> not everyone who has an authoritarian personality (scores high on the F-scale) are right wing as Adorno suggested. It could be insensitive to suggest that

Question 26

Resistance to SI: How can conformity and obedience be resisted

Answer 26

If someone else is not conforming (asch) or obeying (milgram)

Question 27

Resistance to SI: What is locus of control (LOC)

Answer 27

• Rotter
• People with an external LOC believe things that happen to them are out of their control. E.g. if they took an exam the result would be due to luck
• People with internal LOC believe that they control things believe they control what happens to them e.g. if they took an exam the result would be due to how well they studied
• It is a scale, people with high external LOC are more likely to obey than people with high internal LOC

Question 28

Resistance to SI: Evaluate social support and LOC

Answer 28

+Social support ‘Buddies’ can help resist peer pressure
+Research support obedience
> Gamson had told groups to produce research for an oil company smear campaign. He had higher disobedience than milgram bc the Participants were in groups so could disobey together
+Research support LOC
> Holland repeated milgram’s baseline study but measured if the participants were an internal or external LOC.
>37% of internals disobeyed, only 23% of externals disobeyed

-Contradicting research LOC
> twenge et al analysed american LOC studies conducted over a 40 year period and found people became more disobedient and external

Question 29

What are the 3 processes in minority influence?

Answer 29

- Consistency:
- Synchronic: everyone saying the same thing
- Diachronic: saying the same thing for a long period of time
- Commitment: demonstrating their commitment often through extreme actions at personal risk. This draws attention and shows commitment causing others to consider their view point (augmentation principle)
- Flexibility: accepting valid counter arguments and adapting their point of view.

Question 30

Evaluate Minority influence

Answer 30

+Research support for consistency
> Moscovici et al’s blue/ green slide study
> had groups of 6 (two confederates) view 36 blue slides then say what colour they were starting with the confederates
>confederates would say they were green and participants gave that same answer 8.42% of the time.
> group 2 confederates were inconsistent with how often they gave the wrong answer. Participants gave the wrong answer 1.25% of the time
> group 3 had no confederates. Participants gave the wrong answer 0.25% of the time

+Research support for deeper processing
> Martin et al had two groups of participants hear a message supported by either a minority or majority group. The participants who heard a minority group support the message were more likely to support it and not change from that view
CA: Martin et als study did not reflect real life

-Supporting studies used artificial stimuli
> Asch’s line judgement, Moscovici’s colour judgement

Question 31

What are the 6 steps of social change?

Answer 31

1) Drawing attention through actions
2) Consistency
3) Deeper processing: people have to think more deeply about a minorities cause than they would a majority’s cause in order to internalise it
4) Augmentation principle: acting at personal risk so people will see their commitment and consider and internalise their POV
5) snowball effect: as people start to internalise the majorities POV, others will see this and will be more likely to also internalise it (because there is another person to not conform with) and more and more people will internalise the message until the minority becomes the majority
6) Social Cryptomnesia: once the change becomes the social norm, people will forget how it got there

Question 32

Evaluate social change

Answer 32

+Research support for Normative influences
> Nolan et al hung messages on peoples doors saying either they should reduce energy usage or that others were reducing energy usage. There was a higher reduction in energy usage from people told others were reducing energy usage than people told to reduce energy usage
CA: Foxcroft et al found that normative influence did not help college students drinking too much.
> through review 70 studies where social norms were used to reduce student alcohol use he found only a small reduction in quantity and no reduction in frequency of alcohol use
+High explanatory power
> it shows how minority influence can bring about social change as in order to internalise the majorities message they must do ‘divergent thinking’ leading to more creative resolutions
-Makie believes majorities cause deeper processing not minorities
> she believes if we find out that a majority does not share our view we are more likely to think about why that is than is a minority who we are more likely to already believe don’t share our views doesn’t