Social Psychology Flashcards
What is social psychology?
“Social psychology is the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people
Who studied obedience following the 2nd world war?
-Stanley Milgram
why did milgram investigate obedience?
-curious why people followed orders to kill during the war
Describe Milgram’s experiment
-One teacher (real participant),
one learner (a confederate of
the experimenter), both male,
paired association learning task
-Confederate was not real. Just tape recorder
-Learner strapped to an
‘electric chair’ that was allegedly attached to a shock generator in an adjacent room
- Shock generator: 30 switches, marked with voltage that ranged from 15 to 450 volts, 15-volt increments from one switch to the next
- P’s instructed to give a shock to the learner each time he gave a wrong response and to increase the shock level by one each time
What did the experimenter say when teacher refused
-“Please continue” or “Please go on”
“The experiment requires that you continue”
“It is absolutely essential that you continue”
“You have no other choice, you must go on”
What were the results of pilgrim experiment?
- no participant stopped before 300 volts (when the learner seemed to bang on the wall and no longer answered)
- 65% of the participants showed maximum obedience
- (i.e., administered 450 volts three times), mean maximum shock: 405 volts
What were the variations of Milgrams experiment?
- Closeness of the victim (see/hear learner or both)
- Authority of the experimenter (e.g., absent experimenter, office building location)
- Group conditions (more than one person involved)
What is milligram’s explanation?
-People move from self-directed state to agentic state
What is meant by agentic state?
-They come to see themselves as an agent who acts on behalf of someone else
What are 4 properties of agentic state
- Tuning, i.e., maximal receptivity to the authority while the learner’s protests are shut out
- Redefining the meaning of the situation as one of supporting science
- Loss of personal responsibility
- Inhibition of self-evaluation
What were issues with experiment?
-Ethics
-Inconsistent Information, some were said there would be no tissue damage
-Sampling issues- people who took part did it for money
-Replicable?
Reicher and Haslam argued that the more the prod sounded like order, less responsive the participants were
-Little evidence for agentic state
What is social identity explanation?
-Behaviour depends on who they share identity with, experimenter or learner
What is conformity?
-A change of an individual’s behaviours and opinions when they learn that the majority of the people in a group they belong to behave differently or hold different opinions
Describe Asch experiment
- Participants had to match a standard line to one of three comparison lines
- 1 participant, 6 confederates who had been instructed to unanimously give a wrong answer on 12 out of 18 trials
- investigating conformity
What was. results of Asch experiment?
-36.8% of the trials conformity to the wrong judgements of the majority was observed
- 5% showed conformity on all trials,
- 76.4% gave a wrong answer at least once,
- 23.6% remained completely independent
