Social Psychology Flashcards
Describe the procedure of Jenness’s experiment on social psychology.
The aim of Jenness study was to investigate the effect of group discussion on the accuracy of people’s judgements.
Jenness investigated this by asking people to estimate how many jellybeans were in a big jar, before and after a group discussion.
Jenness found that people’s estimates conformed to the group estimate after group discussion, even though the group were no longer present.
Describe the procedure of asch’s study on social psychology
Asch study involved groups of 8 to 10 male college students asked to make judgements about the length of lines across 18 trials. Participants were divided into an experimental group and a control group.
Participants in the experimental group gave their answers in the presence of confederates who gave incorrect answers on 12 out of 18 trials.
Participants in the control group were tested individually, without any confederates.
Describe the results of ashes experiment on social psychology
Asch found that 75% of the participants in the experimental group conformed to the majority’s wrong answer at least once, and that, overall, the experimental group conformed 32% of the time.
On the other hand, the participants in the control group had an error rate of 0.04%.
Since the task was very easy, Asch concluded that the participants giving incorrect answers because they wanted to avoid social rejection, and so, were motivated by normative social influence.
Describes procedure of Zimbardo study
Zimbardo’s aim was to investigate whether prison brutality is caused by individual variables, or because people conform to social roles
He converted the basement of his university into a fake prison and recruited 75 male participants to take part in a controlled observation
Some were assigned into the role of guard some were prisoners.
What are the three limitations of asch’s study.
First, Asch’s study may have lacked ecological validity, because it was a laboratory experiment.
Second, there may have been demand characteristics.
Third, the study ignores individual characteristics that influence conformity.
What are the four limitations of zimbardo’s study?
The first limitation of Zimbardo’s study is that it was unethical for two reasons. Firstly that participants were psychologically harmed during the experiment and secondly that the participants did not know what they were consenting to and so could not give informed consent.
The second limitation of Zimbardo’s study is that his results might not generalise. Zimbardo recruited mainly white, middle-class men, and so the results may not apply to other groups of people.
The third limitation of Zimbardo’s study is that it lacked ecological validity. Critics have said that the study wasn’t realistic; that the participants didn’t believe it was real and so didn’t behave like they would in the real world.
A final limitation of Zimbardo’s study is that Zimbardo had played the role of prison warden in his own experiment. They said that he might have biased the experiment; he might have influenced the behaviour of his participants, meaning there may have been investigator effects.
What are the three situational variables affecting conformity?
group size- when group size id bigger conformity i higher vise versa
Unanimity- when unanimity is higher conformity is higher vise versa
Task difficulty- when tasks are more difficult conformity is higher vise versa.
What are the three situational variables affecting conformity?
group size- when group size id bigger conformity i higher vise versa
Unanimity- when unanimity is higher conformity is higher vise versa
Task difficulty- when tasks are more difficult conformity is higher vise versa.
What are the explanations for conformity?
Normative soca influence-when people conform in order to be liked and fit in. Often they conform only publicly not privately.
Happens when high social pressure and. Conforming by compliance.
Informational social influence- when people conform because they want to be correct but they are not sure of what to think or do. And their private and public attitudes match.
Happens when high task difficulty and high uncertainty low social influence.
What are the 3 responses to limitations of asch’s experiment?
1)lacked ecological validity-because it was a lab experiment he was able to replicate his findings
2) demand characteristics- but post study interview suggest that participants did think the confederate were real people
3) ignores individual variables- 75% of the participants did conform at least one suggesting that the conclusion people conform is reasonable.
Explain the process of ashes further experiment?
I wanted to see how conformity rate would change if he changed to some variables
He removed unanimity by getting one of the confederate to disagree with others. When one confederate disagreed with the majority, the conformity rate of the real participant dropped to 5.5%.
He tested how group size affected conformity firstly with one confederate and one real participant then adding more confederates until he had 15.
he found with two confederate conformity increased to 13%
With three confederate complementary rate was 32%
Finally, he tested task difficulty by making the lines more similar. This increased conformity.
What conclusions did Zimbardo make?
Zimbardo found that normal men quickly turned to brutality and violence once they were assigned these new social roles. Conditions became so bad that Zimbardo had to end the study early.
Zimbardo concluded that prison brutality is caused by social roles, and not by the personality of the prisoners and guards.
What conclusions did Jenness makes?
He concluded that people were conforming by internalisation, because they were uncertain and thought the group estimate was correct.
So, Jenness concluded that conformity was best explained by informational social influence.
What are the three different types of conformity?
Compliance is when a persons public attitudes are influenced by the majority but their private attitude are different this is to make them fit in and not be rejected.
Identification is when a persons public and private attitude is changed due to the desire of imitating their role model or to fit a social role because I they have been influenced
Internalization is when someone is persuaded that something is right, and they believe in it even if others Opinion changes.
What is the definition of social psychology?
Social psychology - is the study of now an persons behavior and attitude is influenced by a actual or imagined person
What is the definition of social group?
Social group - is a group of two or more individuals who interact, share a common interests and share a common identity
What is the definition of social role?
Social role- behaviors and beliefs that are expected of person from a certain social group
E.g. teachers are expected to teach and help students learn.
What is the definition of social norms?
Social norms- unwritten rules of how a member of a social group is expected to behave. Eg doctors and nurses are expected to put the safety of patient ahead of anything however social role: doctor are expected to diagnose and nurses are expected to handle equipment and asses patients response to treatment.
