Social Influnce Studies

Question 1

Evaluation of Zimbardo

Answer 1

\:(
Psychological harm (stress)
Physical harm (starvation)
$15 a day 
Investigator effects- Zimbardo was the chief superintendent. Prisoner guards often came for his advice on how to deal with prisoners. Zimbardo simply instructed them to keep control 'by any means possible'. 

:)
Control over variables- emotionally stable individuals were chosen. This was one way in which researchers tried to rule out individual personality differences as an explanation for the results. Having such control over the variables increases the internal validity so we can be much more confident in drawing conclusions about the influence of roles on behaviour.

Question 2

Jenness

Answer 2

Participants make private predictions on how many sweets in a jar

Meet and discuss as group

Group prediction

Second private prediction

It was found that participants answers changed when they met as a group, their second private predictions converged towards the group norm suggest their behaviour changed due to a desire to be rig

Question 3

Asch 1951

Answer 3

Male undergraduate participants
Room with 6 others (confederates)
Actual participant sat on the end of the row and answered last
Each participant asked in turn which line matched the one shown to them.
In 12 of the 18 trials, the actors answered incorrectly.

In the 12 critical trials, there was a 32% conformity rate to the wrong answer.

Desire to be liked

Question 4

Asch evaluation

Answer 4

It’s realistic- not a task you’d get asked to do
Participants may guess the aim of the experiment
The participants were misled because they were told they were taking part in a task on the perception of line lengths
The sample was only male students so the results can’t be generalised

Question 5

Asch follow up studies

Answer 5

Group size. Asch repeated the study using 1 actor instead of 6. Conformity decreased to 3%

Unanimity. Asch repeated he study but instead of having 6 actors in agreement, he used 5 actors in agreement and 1 who correct answer. Conformity decreased to 6% because there’s less pressure and isn’t as obvious which the right answer is,

Task difficulty. Asch repeated the study but made the lines more similar to each other to answer was less obvious. Conformity increased due to the desire to be right p.

Question 6

Bickman 1974

Answer 6

An actor was dressed either as a security guard, a milkman or as a civilian and walked around the streets of New York telling people to do things such as pick litter up

Guard: 38%
Civilian: 19%
Milkman: 14%

Suggests that uniforms are important and effect if we obey people.

:) high ecological validity
:( low control of extraneous variables

Question 7

Hofling 1966

Answer 7

An unknown doctor rang hospital and informed nurses to administer a large injection of an unknown drug to a patient because they were running late p.

21 out of 22 nurses went to deliver the drug to the patient (before being stopped)

Question 8

Milgram agentic shift

Answer 8

In one variation of milgrams study, the researcher gave orders down a telephone rather than sat in the same room p.

Obedience levels dropped from 68% to 20%

This suggests that without the experiment in the same room, they were less likely to shift the responsibility to the experimenter and saw themselves as responsible for the shocks.

Question 9

Milgram legitimate of authority

Answer 9

Milgram repeated study in the poorer area of Bridgeport.

Obedience dropped from 68% to 47% suggesting that participants did not obey as they didn’t see the men from the market research business as legitimate an authority as the experimenter at Yale

Question 10

Milgram proximity

Answer 10

Milgram changed his experiment so that participants had to physically hold the learners hand on the shock plate.

Obedience dropped to 30% which shows the effect of close proximity on obedience

Question 11

Shute 1975

Answer 11

Participants tested for their LOC using a questionnaire
They were then given a conformity task where they were put in groups with people who were very liberal or conservative about drug laws.
They found that participants with an internal LOC were less likely to conform to the groups attitudes about drug laws suggesting they were less likely to be affects by normative social influence.

Question 12

Schurtz 1985

Answer 12

Shurtz replicated Milgrams original obedience study asking participants to take a LOC questionnaire before hand.
Milgrams study was unethical so instead of using electrical shocks, the participants thought they were giving ultrasound bursts to a learner

Schurz found that participants with an internal LOC tended to take more responsibility for their actions than those with an external LOC.

Question 13

Moscovici 1969

Answer 13

Aim was to investigate the effect of a consistent minority on a majority

Question 14

Zimbardo

Answer 14

1971
Men volunteered to take part in study on prison life
$15 per day (advert in newspaper)
Stanford uni- mock prison
Participants randomly assigned to role of guards or prisoners
16 rules they had to follow enforced by the guards
Guards took up their roles with enthusiasm and became threat
Study stopped after 6 days instead of intended 14
Within 2 days, prisoners rebelled
Guards harassed prisoners
After rebellion, prisoners became subdued

Conclusion- study revealed the power of the situation to influence people’s behaviour. All participants conformed to their roles within the prison.