Social Influnce Studies Flashcards
What was the method of Jenness’ study?
Participants make predictions privately
Participants meet and discuss as a group
Participants make a group prediction
Participants make a second private prediction
What experimental design is Jenness’ study?
Repeated measures
When was Jenness?
1932
What were the findings of Jenness’ study?
Participants’ answers changed when they met as a group. The second private answer converged towards the group norm.
What is the conclusion of Jenness’ study?
They were changing their answers due to a desire to be right - informative social influence
When was asch’s study?
1951
What was the method of asch’s study?
The participants entered a room with 6 other people, who were all actors. The actual participant was sat on the end of the row and watch participant was asked which line matched the one shown to them.
In 12 of the 18 trials, the actors answered incorrectly.
Who were the participants of asch’s study?
Male undergraduates
What was the conformity rate in the 12 critical trials of asch’s study?
32%
What % of people answered incorrectly in at least one trial of asch’s study?
75%
What % of the 123 participants conformed in every single trial?
5%
what is an advantage of asch’s data being quantitative?
Easy to compare and analyse
Why does asch’s study support normative social influence?
Because he found that the majority of participants said that they knew they were answering incorrectly, but wished to avoid ridicule.
Why does asch’s study support informational social influence?
Because 75% who answered incorrectly said they did it because they thought the other must know better, or because they started to doubt their own judgement
Is asch’s study generalisable?
No- because it isn’t a real life situation - low ecological validity
64 years old - low temporal validity
Is asch’s study reliable?
Yes because it can be repeated with the exact same method and get similar results
What is the application of asch’s study?
It can teach us people’s ability to conform
What are the ethical issues of asch’s study?
The participants might feel stupid because they think they are wrong.
Is asch’s study a good sample?
No because it is all men - androcentric
And young men so not generalisable to women and other ages or people from other areas
How did group size effect asch’s results?
Conformity dropped to 3% please there was less people and less pressure.
How did unanimity effect asch’s results?
5 actors incorrect. 1 gave correct answer
Conformity dropped to 6% - gave the participant social support
How did task difficulty effect asch’s results?
Conformity increased because informative social influence would increase as the task is harder
When was Bickmans’s study?
1974
What was the method of Bickmans’s study?
An actor was dressed in uniform (milkman or a security guard) or as a civilian, and walked around the streets of New York, telling people to do things such as pick up litter, move away from the bus stop, or provide some change for a parking meter
What were the results of Bickmans’s study?
People obeyed the person who was dressed as a security guard most (38%) then the civilian (19%) and then the milkman (14%)
What does Bickmans’s study suggest about the importance of uniforms?
This shows that a uniform that presents authority, makes someone more likely to obey more than if they weren’t wearing a uniform
What is a strength of Bickmans’s study?
It was done in a real life situation, on the streets of New York, so it has high ecological validity
What sampling is used in Bickmans’s study?
Opportunity sampling
What are the weaknesses of opportunity sampling in Bickmans’s study?
People might not want to take part, also it will take a long time to gather information
What study supports the agentic shift explanation of obedience?
Variation of milgrams study where the researcher gave orders down the phone
What were the results of milgram’s phone study?
Obedience levels dropped from 68% to 20%
What study supports legitimacy of authority?
Variation of Milgrams study in Bridgeport
What were the results of Milgram’s Bridgeport study?
Obedience dropped from 68% to 47%
What study supports social support?
A variation of asch’s study where there was a dissenter (someone who always disagrees with the majority, who answered correctly everytime, meaning that the participant had social support
What were the results of the social support variation of asch’s study?
Conformity dropped from 32% to just 5.5%
