social influene

Question 1

Social influence

Answer 1

When a persons attitudes, beliefs or behaviors are modified by the presence or criticisms of others.

Question 2

Obedience

Answer 2

When someone responds to a direct order from an authority figure.

Question 3

Informational social influence

Answer 3

When people conform as they want to be correct so they assume the majority know the right thing to do.

Question 4

Normative social influence

Answer 4

Individual wants to be liked an accepted by the group- based on desire fit in, may change publicly but not privately

Question 5

Sherif

Answer 5

Asked how far a dot of light in a dark room moved (it didn’t), there was a variation in answers, put them in groups of 3 to do it again, the answers converged- a group norm was established, then he asked individuals to do it again and the group answer was internalized. This shows that when in an ambiguous situation, a person will look to others for guidance. They want to do the right thing but may lack the appropriate information.

Question 6

Sherif evaluation

Answer 6

As the light didn’t move it was impossible to provide a ‘correct’ answer, so it was impossible to say for certain that the participants in the experiment had actually conformed.
Ecological validity. The task used by Sherif is far from an everyday task that represents everyday life. It is hard to imagine that people would often discuss how far a point of light appears to be moving in a darkened room, and so the study lacks ecological validity and mundane realism

Question 7

Asch

Answer 7

Asch wanted to investigate whether people would conform to the majority in situations where an answer was obvious. 50 college students, 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 true participant the remaining 6 were confederates. The confederates were told to give the incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trails.

Question 8

Asch findings

Answer 8

32% conformity rate, 74% of participants conformed at least once (26% didn’t), only 5% conformed all the time. This shows that there is a strong tendency to conform even when the majority response is obviously one.

Question 9

Asch evaluation

Answer 9

Lacks mundane realism as it’s hard to generalize o a real life situation, it was done in 1950s America; a very conformist time, doesn’t reflect other times, androcentric and they’re young, There are also sampling issues regarding this study as the study was only carried out on men thus the sample was gender bias and therefore the results cannot be applied to females- androcentric, deception

Question 10

Conformity

Answer 10

The process of conforming to major influence and is defined by David Myers as a change in behavior to real or imaginary group pressure

Question 11

Types of conformity

Answer 11

Compliance; where a person may agree in public with a group of people privately disagrees with the group’s viewpoint or behaviour. This is a temporary change.
Identification; Adopting views or behavior of a group publicly or privately as you value your membership, however these are temporary. For example, a policeman, teacher or politician.
Internalization: A true conversion of private views to match those of a new group, these new attitudes become part of your value system. This is the deepest level of conformity- e.g religion

Question 12

internal locus of control

Answer 12

People with a high internal locus of control perceive (see) themselves as having a great deal of personal control over their behaviour and are therefore more likely to take responsibility for the way they behave. For example I did well on the exams because I revised extremely hard. Rotter proposes that people with internal locus of control are better at resisting social pressure to conform or obey.

Question 13

External locus of control

Answer 13

The belief that what happens to the individual is not controlled by them but factors outside of themselves- god, horoscopes…

Question 14

social change

Answer 14

Social change occurs when a whole society adopts a new belief or behaviour which then becomes widely accepted as the ‘norm’.

Question 15

Why do people obey?

Answer 15

BAGS
Buffers: When people are protected from facing consequences of actions.
Agentic shift: When someone can shift blame onto authority figure.
Gradual commitment: Moving gradually from responsible to irresponsible so it doesn’t seem as bad- foot in the door.
Socio-cultural factors- As authority figures are usually trustworthy and legitimate.

Question 16

Why do people resist obeying

Answer 16

Matt Doesn’t Read Questions:
Moral reasoning: If someone has firm principles or beliefs that are more resistant to orders
Disobedient models: seeing others resisting could encourage it.
Responsible: they feel responsible for their actions
Questioning motives: Questioning the expertise of authority.

Question 17

Milgram aim

Answer 17

To find out whether ordinary people will obey a legitimate authority when required to inflict pain on another person- also to test the hypothesis ‘Germans are different’

Question 18

milgram findings

Answer 18

65% went to maximum voltage, only 5 stopped at 300 volts- when learner first objected, most found it very stressful and wanted to stop, some showed extreme anxiety and 3 had seizures, however they mostly carried on.

Question 19

Milgram conclusions

Answer 19

Ordinary people under certain circumstances most people will obey orders that go against their conscience, People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognize their authority as morally right and or legally based. Crimes against humanity are situational and not disposable, germans are not different

Question 20

milgram weaknesses

Answer 20

he used a small sample and US population(enthnocentric)-population validity. Internal validity- orne and holland argued the participants didn’t believe they were giving electric shocks and went along with it- however participants said they did and were distressed. External validity- it was repeated in other countries with different results, orne and holland say it lacks mundane realism

Question 21

milgram strengths

Answer 21

No harm- follow up questionnaires showed 84% were glad to have taken part and there’s no evidence of long term harm.

Question 22

milgram ethics limitations

Answer 22

Diane Baimrid said it placed participants under far too much emotional stress and pressure, deception- participants were tricked into thinking it was a study on punishment, when it was actually on obedience, could have subjected participants to psychological damage, lack of respect to participants as it causes them harm

Question 23

milgram ethics strengths

Answer 23

Carried out a sensitive debriefing to all participants, knowledge- asked participants, students and psychologists on outcome, the ethical guidelines were only drafted to protect participants during research.

Question 24

Minority influence

Answer 24

When an individual or small group aims to persuade the majority to their point of view.

Question 25

Snowball effect

Answer 25

Van Avermaet- A few members of the majority start to move towards a minority position; their influence begins to gather momentum as people gradually start to pay attention to its political correctness.

Question 26

Social cryptoamnesia (dissociation effect)

Answer 26

Perez claimed minorities influence the majority when the minorities ideas become dissociated from the minority- if the majority forget where the idea has come from they’re more likely to adopt it.

Question 27

Moscovici on what behavioural styles minorities must possess to assert social influence of majority

Answer 27

Consistency- Consistent in their opposition to the majority, Moscovici says it comprises of ‘resolution, Certainty, clarity of definition and coherence’- RCCC.
Not dogmatic- they must demonstrate a degree of flexibility and not reiterate the same arguments.

Question 28

Hogg and Vaughan on what behavioural styles minorities must possess to assert social influence of majority

Answer 28

Be acting out of principle and not self interest.
make sacrifices to maintain position
Be similar to majority in terms of class, age and gender
Advocate views with current social trends

Question 29

The suffragettes

Answer 29

In 20th century a small group of women disobeyed the authority and resisted conformity for the right of women to vote in parliamentary elections.

Question 30

Do suffragettes have any of Moscovici’s traits

Answer 30

Flexible- they accepted women over the age of 30 to vote in 1918 and then took another 10 years to change this to 21

Question 31

Do suffragettes have any of Hogg and Vaughan’s traits

Answer 31

Social trends- idea of women voting was already starting to grab momentum, Emily Davidson made a sacrifice- died while fighting for her rights and they went on hunger strikes, acted out of principle of women’s right to vote.

Question 32

How the snowball effect applies to suffragettes

Answer 32

Women- husbands- friends- men in parliament- business owners.

Question 33

How social cryptoamnesia applies to suffragettes

Answer 33

Votes for women because separated from initial rebellion as women were important to the labour force during WW1.

Question 34

Milgram- why people conform part. 1

Answer 34

Ordinary- milgram demonstrated that normal people placed in certain situations, under certain pressures will obey an authority.
Foot in the door- milgram showed that people can become gradually committed.

Question 35

Milgram- why people conform part 2

Answer 35

Internal locus of control- people with high internal locus of control are less likely to show conformity or obedient behaviour

Question 36

locus of control

Answer 36

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.

Question 37

milgram procedure part 1

Answer 37

Volunteers were recruited for a lab experiment Participants were 40 males, aged between 20 and 50.
At the beginning of the experiment they were introduced to another participant, who was actually a confederate of Milgram. They drew straws to determine their roles – learner or teacher – although this was fixed and the confederate was always the learner.
Two rooms were used one for the learner (with an electric chair) and another for the teacher and experimenter with an electric shock generator.
The “learner” was strapped to a chair with electrodes. After he has learned a list of word pairs given him to learn, the “teacher” tests him by naming a word and asking the learner to recall its pair from a list of four possible choices.

Question 38

milgram procedure part 2

Answer 38

The teacher is told to administer an electric shock every time the learner makes a mistake, increasing the level of shock each time. There were 30 switches on the shock generator marked from 15 volts to 450
The learner gave mainly wrong answers (on purpose) and for each of these the teacher gave him an electric shock. When the teacher refused to administer a shock the experimenter was to give a series of prods to ensure they continued. these were
please continue, the experiment requires you to continue, It is absolutely essential that you continue and you have no other choice but to continue.