Social psychology Flashcards
What are the 2 assumptions of the social approach
Behaviour is influenced by the situation, by our interactions with other individuals and by groups.
Behaviour is influenced by culture and by society
What was the aim of Milgram’s original study
To investigate the extent to which ordinary people would follow destructive orders in a situation in which obedience could seriously harm, even kill, another individual, thereby violating their moral codes.
What is the sample for Milgram’s original study
Volunteer sample of 40 men from the New Haven area was gained via a local newspaper article
What is the procedure of Milgram’s original study
P’pants deceived into thinking it was a study on effect of punishment on memory
P’pant was teacher and confederate MR W was learner, they were in separate rooms
Teacher teach a word pairing task every time they were wrong the teacher electric shocked them increasing by 15 from 15-450 V.
Mr W complained of a heart condition and when the p’pant tried to stop they were given a series of verbal prods like ‘u must continue’
What were the findings of Milgrams original study
100% of participants went to 300V and 65% went to the end of 450. Physical signs of stress including stress, trembling, seizures and nail biting
What was the conclusion of Milgrams original study
Social setting is a powerful determinant of behaviour.
Majority of ordinary people will follow destructive orders if instructed by an authority figure even if someone’s life is at risk
2 strengths of Milgrams original study
Standardised procedure - highly controlled lab setting all men experienced same thing as like verbal prods, tape played responses from Mr W and the same fake aim. T/F reliable as it’s all replicated in different variations to produce similar findings
Practical applications - 65% going to 450 shows people will carry out destructive orders from authority figure. T/F can explain historic events like Abu Ghraib or holocaust
2 weaknesses of Milgrams original study.
Pop validity - 40 men from New haven area so androcentric and ethnocentric and small sample size
Mundane realism - Highly controlled artificial lab setting task of shocking someone when they get something wrong not an everyday task so not naturally occuring
What is a risk assessment
Systematic collection of info to determine the degree to which harm is likely at some poimt
2 considerations of risk assessment
Any long term negative effects - physical , psychological etc
The way the participants are recruited - Sampling method, paid etc
Aim of Milgrams experiment 7
Investigate if proximity to experimenter would influence levels of obedience. To see if physical distance where orders were over the phone would influence levels of obedience
What was the sample of Milgrams experiment 7
Volunteer sample of 40 men from the new haven area
Procedure of Milgrams experiment 7
Initial instructions were given by the experimenter but this time he left the room and gave further instructions over the phone
P’pants deceived into thinking it was a study on effect of punishment on memory
P’pant was teacher and confederate MR W was learner, they were in separate rooms
Teacher teach a word pairing task every time they were wrong the teacher electric shocked them increasing by 15 from 15-450 V.
Mr W complained of a heart condition and when the p’pant tried to stop they were given a series of verbal prods over the phone like ‘u must continue’
Findings of Milgrams experiment 7
22.5% went to 450 volts
Sweating, trembling and nail biting
Conclusion of Milgrams experiment 7
The larger proximity of the authority figure to the person giving the order to less likely they are to be obedient.
Define obedience
Following orders from someone with more authority than you
Define obedience
Following orders from someone with more authority than u
2 strengths of Milgrams experiment 7
Standardised procedure - highly controlled lab setting all men experienced same things like verbal prods over the phone, tape played responses from Mr W and the same fake aim. T/F reliable as it’s all replicated in different variations to produce similar findings
Practical applications - going from 65% to 22.5% shows people more likelt to obey if order given in person than over the phone from authority figure. T/F can explain historic events like Abu Ghraib or holocaust
2 weaknesses of Milgrams experiment 7
Pop validity - 40 men from New haven area so androcentric and ethnocentric and small sample size
Mundane realism - receiving orders over the phone to electric shock someone when they get something wrong not an everyday task so not naturally occuring
Milgrams Experiment 10 aim
To investigate if the setting of where an order is given would influence the levels of obedience. To see if a rundown office block would decrease levels of obedience
Sample of Milgrams experiment 10
Volunteer sample of 40 men from new haven
Procedure of Milgrams experiment 10
Procedure was the same as Milgrams original experiment apart from the setting was a rundown office block in downtown Bridgeport Connecticut rather than Yale in. P’pants thought it was a private research company no connection to Yale
Findings of Milgrams experiment 10
47.5% participants went 450 volts. All the same physical signs of stress
Conclusion of Milgrams experiment 10
The location of where the order is given will influence obedience levels. The less prestigious the location the lower the levels of obedience.
2 strengths of Milgrams experiment 10
Standardised procedure - highly controlled lab setting all men experienced same things like verbal prods, tape played responses from Mr W and the same fake aim. T/F reliable as it’s all replicated in different variations to produce similar findings
Practical applications - going from 65% to 47.5 % shows people more likelt to obey if order given in a prestigious setting. T/F can explain high levels of obedience in institutional setting
2 weaknesses of Milgrams experiment 10
Pop validity - 40 men from New haven area so androcentric and ethnocentric and small sample size
Mundane realism - receiving orders in a rundown office block to electric shock someone when they get something wrong not an everyday task so not naturally occuring
Aim of Milgrams experiment 13
Investigate if viewing someone as a legitimate authority figure by the way they are dressed will influence levels of obedience.
Procedure of Milgrams experiment 13
Same as Milgrams apart from 4 people entered Mr W, participant, Experimenter and ordinary man.
Experimenter strapped Mr W in then left due to a phone call and ordinary man became experimenter e.g. giving verbal prods when needed
Findings of Milgrams 13
20% of participants went to 450 volts
Same physical signs of stress
Conclusion of Milgrams experiment 13
People dressed in normal clothes and not uniform are viewed as a less legitimate authority figure and so obedience levels will decrease.
2 strengths of Milgrams 13 experiment
Standardised procedure - highly controlled lab setting all men experienced same things like verbal prods, tape played responses from Mr W and the experimenter leaving leaving the ordinary man. T/F reliable as it’s all replicated in different variations to produce similar findings
Practical applications - going from 65% to 20% shows people more likelt to obey if they see the authority figure as more prestigious . T/F can explain high levels of obedience in institutional setting
2 weaknesses of Milgram’s experiment 13
Pop validity - 40 men from New haven area so androcentric and ethnocentric and small sample size
Mundane realism - receiving orders from and ordinary man to electric shock someone when they get something wrong not an everyday task so not naturally occuring
5 Situational factors affecting obedience
Social contract - paid so more likely to obey
Buffers - Separate room teacher and learner 65-40%
Status of authority figure - Lab coat to ordinary man 65-20%
Deferred responsibility - experimenter takes full responsibility
Location - More prestigious more obedience - 65-47.5%
Locus of control in obedience
Rotter proposed a scale to measure someone’s locus of control.
Internal locus of control - Believe they are responsible for their own actions and less influenced by others
External locus of control - Believe behaviour is beyond their control and due to external factors such as fate so are influenced around them
Milgram found those who disobeyed gave more blame to themselves than others.
Authoritarian personality in obedience
Adorno proposed that some people have authoritarian personality and are rigid in their thoughts so wont change the way they think. Likely to conform to social norms and be conventional in their attitudes.
Hostile towards those with inferior status to themselves and obedient to those with higher status
Personality trait of empathy
Has been theorised that those with high levels of empathy would be less likely to harm another person by the instructions of an authority figure and therefore less likely to be obedient to destructive orders. However, in recent replications of Milgram’s experiment Burger found that although people who score high on empathy were more likely to protest against giving electric shocks, this did not translate into lower levels of obedience
Gender in obedience
Milgram’s experiment 8 found similar obedience rates for men and women although women had higher levels of anxiety than men
Very little if any gender difference in obedience
Culture in obedience
Individualistic cultures - such as America and Britain tend to behave more independently and resist conformity and compliance so less likely to obey
Collectivist cultures such as china tend to behave as collective groups based on interdependence, meaning compliance is important so more likely to obey.
Aim of Burgers study
To investigate obedience by partially replicating Milgrams study to examine whether situation factors still affect obedience to an authority figure. Simply ‘Would people still obey today?’
Sample of Burgers study
A volunteer sample of 70 paid volunteers both male and female at Santa Clara uni
Procedure of burgers study
P’pants screened to ensure no prior psych or Milgram knowledge to reduce demand characteristics
P’pants deceived into thinking it was a study on effect of punishment on memory
P’pant was teacher and confederate MR W was learner, they were in separate rooms
Teacher teach a word pairing task every time they were wrong the teacher electric shocked them increasing by 15 from 15-450 V.
Mr W complained of a heart condition and when the p’pant tried to stop they were given a series of verbal prods like ‘u must continue’
Forced to stop at 150 and immediately debriefed on fake shocks.
Findings of burgers study
Burger found that 30% of p’pants stopped at or before 150 volts. 70% of the of the participants continued after 150 volts - 66.7% males and 72.7% females
Conclusion of burgers study
Average Americans react today much the same way they did 46 years ago. The same situational factors that affected obedience in Milgram’s participants still operate today. Time and changes in society’s culture did not have an effect on obedience levels.
2 strengths of Burgers study
Standardised procedure - all experienced same things like verbal prods, sample shock and told they can keep money regardless
Demand characteristics - P’pants were screened to ensure they hadn’t studied psychology and weren’t aware of Milgrams study.
2 Weaknesses of Burgers study
Pop validity - used a sample of 70 from same area of America
Mundane realism - shocking someone for getting a wrong answer is not an everyday task.
2 strengths of agency theory
Supported by Milgram - found 65% p’pants obeyed authority figure to seriously harm an innocent person. TF shows people more likely to obey authority figure supporting agency theory
Practical applications - Explain aspects of behaviour especially how ordinary decent people can go against their conscience and thereby commit atrocities e.g. holocaust soldiers deferred responsibility to Hitler. TF has positive applications to society to explain atrocities.
2 weaknesses of agency theory
Difficult to prove existence of agentic state - State of mind so is a hypothetical construct and hard to measure. Therefore cannot be empirically proved.
Cant explain individual differences - Milgram has neglected the 35% who didn’t obey which gender, culture and personality type may affect. TF reductionist as it doesn’t obey consider why some people refuse to obey
Agency theory AO1 (4)
In the autonomous state, we have free will and act according to our own conscience and we feel responsible for our actions
In the agentic state we surrender our free will and follow orders of an authority figure. We see ourselves as an agent to those in authority and no longer act according to our conscience. No longer feel responsible for their actions and defer to the authority figure
People move from autonomous to agentic state via an agentic shift where they are confronted by an authority figure and justify it by saying they were ordered.
Moral strain occurs where we have to do something we believe to be immoral in order to function as an agent of authority. Suggested we use defence mechanisms like denial to avoid distress.
What is the Social impact theory considering
SIT considers social influence to be determined by 3 elements: Social forces, psychosocial law and multiplication/division of impact.
What are the social forces in social impact theory
Argued that strength of influence felt by a person is influenced by 3 factors:
Strength - importance of person giving the message including status, age and gender
Number - Message is stronger if its repeated by a lot of people all in agreement
Immediacy - Message will have more impact if it comes from someone in close proximity to you
What is the psychosocial law in social impact theory
As the number of social forces (people) increases then the overall social influence also increases, but this increase in social influence is at a diminishing rate
What is the multiplication/division of impact in social impact theory
A lone person was more likely to help someone in need compared to a group of people as when in a group each person feels less responsible for helping compared to if they were alone
2 strengths of social impact theory
Asch - when 1 confederate gave incorrect answer 3% gave wrong answer. 2 confederates incorrect caused 12.8% wrong, 3 incorrect caused 32%. TF supporting number increases impact
Milgram 7 - When orders were given over the phone rather than face to face obedience dropped from 65% to 22.5%. Tf supporting close proximity increases impact
2 weaknesses of social impact theory
Reductionist - says all people cannot control impact opposed on them so doesn’t account for individual difference and nature of human interaction.
Descriptive rather than explanatory - Doesn’t explain why people are influenced by others just under what conditions they are more likely to be influenced so cognition why they obey not considered. TF too simplistic.
What is the social key question
How can knowledge of social psychology be used to explain destructive obedience in society, such as in a prison setting like the atrocities committed at Abu ghraib
Describe your key question (4) AO1
State the question…
Abu Ghraib is a maximum security prison for prisoners of war in Iraq ran by the US military.
In 2004 photos were leaked to world press about the atrocities at Abu Ghraib: Torture with dogs set on them, Rape / sexual humiliation, murder
The graphic photos were images of both the soldiers and prisoners with some images showing soldiers smiling by dead bodies
Issue was the soldiers were ordinary people who would not harm / torture someone in their everyday life. Soldiers claimed they only did things due to orders by higher ranking officers
Explain your key question (4) AO2
Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment can help explain the soldiers behaviour as he placed the fault of their torturing behaviours on the social situation and roles placed on them rather than blaming the soldiers themselves
4 Social identity theory AO1
SIT is based on the assumption that prejudice is explained by our tendency to identify ourselves as part of a group. In-groups are those groups to which individual belongs, out-group is which they don’t belong.
Social categorisation - place yourself in a social group based on social norms and interests, in group and everyone else is out group
Social identification - Actively adopting in group identity, appearance wear same clothes, behaviour similar activities
Social comparison - compare the group against other groups, judge our group favourably over others, boost self esteem, actively ridicule out-group resulting in prejudice
2 strengths of social identity theory
Tajfel - 64 british boys found they favour their own group and give own group maximum points and out group least points. TF supporting in group favouritism so increasing validity
Practical application - Understand prejudice is consequence of out group ridicule so we know not to group people to reduce prejudice. TF make society safer
2 weaknesses of social identity theory
Reductionist - SIT only accounts for the role of nurture - placing yourself into social groups and does not account for role of nature such as a prejudice personality like authoritarian. TF cant fully explain prejudice so is simplistic reducing validity
Cross cultural differences are not accounted for - Some cultures are more tolerant of discrimination than other and have a much greater
tendency to favour in-groups over out-groups. For example, some tribes encourage this out group discrimination as part of their culture
Aim of Sherif’s study
To investigate whether 2 groups brought into contact and competition with each other will become hostile towards each other, and if this prejudice would be reduced if the two groups were set a superordinate goal.
Sample of Sherif’s study
Opportunity sample from Oklahoma schools of 22 middle class protestant boys aged 11 (1 was 12)
Procedure of Sherif’s study
Sherif used a field experiment that had 3 stages: In-group formation, frictional phase and the Integration Phase. The first stage the boys were kept separate from each other and each group was involved in activities designed to encourage bonding and in-group formation, such as hiking and swimming. The frictional stage of the procedure happened over the next 4-6 days. Boys were brought into with each other during competitions as part of a camp tournament. The tournament included a series of competitive activities (e.g. tug-of-war etc.) with a trophy being awarded on the basis of accumulated team score. The integration phase of the procedure was during the last couple of days of camp where conflict resolution was used through the introduction of superordinate goals deliberately designed to ensure cooperation between the groups. Problem situations were set up that could only be resolved if both groups worked cooperatively like fixing the water tank which provided water to both groups. Starting the broken down camp bus that had got stuck in the mud.
Findings of Sherif’s study
The groups were made aware of the other’s existence and the formed of and an ’us’ and ‘them’ attitude.
Verbal insults were used between the 2 groups such as stinkers, braggers and sissies.
There was also physical violence between the rattlers and eagles.
Sherif found that in the frictional stage 93% had friends in their own group. However, by the end of the integration phrase 30% of the boys had friends between the two groups showing a reduction in prejudice
Conclusion of Sherif
Sherif concluded that strong in-group identities were formed initially, and with the introduction of competition, negative out-group bias quickly emerged. The introduction of superordinate goals had a cumulative effect in reducing negative out-group bias because it removed competition.
2 strengths of Sherif
ONE MORE
Ecological validity - Robbers cave Summer camp is a natural setting for these boys to be and tasks are normal.
2 weaknesses of Sherif’s study
ONE MORE
Population validity - Final sample of 22 middle class protestant boys from Oklahoma all but 1 aged 11. TF ethnocentric, androcentric, unrep, cant be generalised
No control group - Sherif used a pre-experimental design; he compared the boys’ behaviour before and after conditions rather than comparing the results with a control group. TF this questions the internal validity of the data, as we cannot be sure the competition caused hostility as we are unaware how much hostility would have emerged between the groups when there was no competition.
Realistic conflict theory AO1 (4)
In-group and out-groups are formed meaning that prejudice is a consequence of intergroup conflict
The conflict occurs when 2 groups are in competition for the same limited resource
The in group will see the it group as inferior thus the conflict is ‘real’
Two groups could have the same interest in pursuing the same goal which is a superordinate goal which causes a reduction in hostility and prejudice
2 strengths of realistic conflict theory
Supported by Sherif’s robbers cave study - Found that putting boys into 2 groups of rattlers and eagles and putting them into competition like tug of war for a limited resource of trophy it caused conflict like physical fights and verbal name calling like ‘sissies’. TF suggests… increasing validity of RCT
Practical applications - knowing prejudice can be reduced by superordinate goals can be used e.g. workplace giving everyone equal bonuses if certain goal is reached or team bonding. TF ensures society function effectively and is harmonious
2 weaknesses of realistic conflict theory
ADD ONE MORE
Tyerman and spencer - Observed scouts who already knew each other well as they competed against each other in competition and it did not produce prejudice. TF suggesting competition only affects those who don’t know each other(not explored by Sherif) questioning his validity
Reductionist - doesn’t consider culture like individualistic and collectivist culture differences causing prejudice. TF too simplistic explanation of prejudice.
Personality explaining prejudice AO1 (Non-social explanations)
Personality explaining prejudice strengths
Personality explaining prejudice weaknesses
Define quantitative data
Numerical data which can be presented in the form of %’s, statistics and graphs
Data sets can be compared and trends can be found to draw conclusions
2 strengths of quantitative data
+ Objective analysis
+ Quick and easy to analyse
Define qualitative data
Descriptive data, in depth detailed info given through words.
Presented in overall themes of the data helps understand why people behave how they do
2 strengths of qualitative data
+ Descriptive in depth data
+ Ecological validity
1 strength 1 weakness of open questions
+ Qualitative data produced
- Difficult to analyse
1 strength 1 weakness of closed questions
+ Standardised questions and answers
- Quant data
2 strengths of unstructured interviews
High validity - Qual data produced allowing p’pant to give more detail and info for their answer. TF researcher gains increased understanding and so validity
Questions can be explained - due to questions being open p’pant goes into more detail on answers
2 weaknesses of unstructured interviews
Researcher bias - could make answers fit the hypothesis
Subjectivity
Aim of social practical
To investigate in-group favouritism by looking at ageism to see if young people have different attitudes towards different age groups. To compare young people’s positive and negative attitudes towards those in the same age group as themselves to people in an older age groups to themselves
IV and DV of social practical
IV - Age group being young people (16-18) or old people (50+)
DV - positive / negative attitudes
Sample of the social practical
Opportunity sample of 15 students from WBS aged 16-18
Procedure of social practical
Students worked in groups of 3 to form questionnaires to find out young peoples views on young and old people consisting of 10 Q’s, 8 closed, 2 open
Each person collected results from 5 people
We briefed the participants, with standardised instructions at the top of the questionnaire to complete the questionnaire, we then gave the participants time to answer the questionnaire
After completing the questionnaire participants were debriefed on the true aim of the study and were allowed to withdraw their results.
Findings of social practical
Found that young people had a mean attitude of 14.13 towards young people compared to a mean attitude of 14.13 towards old people.
Overall themes towards young people were less sociable and unrealistic expectations
Overall themes towards old people were extremely kind and outdated views
Conclusion of social practical
The higher the mean the more positive the attitude, therefore suggesting young people have a more positive attitude towards neither group as the views align for both groups
2 strengths of the social practical
Objective analysis - 8 questions were closed using Likert scale
Standardised procedure - all went through same procedure
2 weaknesses of social practical
Pop validity - ethnocentric, small sample
Demand characteristics - we stood next to participants whilst they completed it
