Social psychology Flashcards

Question

What is an autonomous state?

Answer 1

In an autonomous state a human acts according to their own free will. They direct their own behaviour and take responsibility for the results.

Answer 2

When given instructions by a authority figure a person switches to an agentic state. They see themselves as acting as an agent for the authority figure. They allow that person to direct their behaviour and assume that responsibility for their actions passes to that person.

Answer 3

• Shift to an agentic state of mind. • This results in a displacement of responsibility. • The authority figure has the responsibility. OR Disobey /dissent to authority. • Can produce relief once an individual has removed themselves from the situation.

Answer 4

Milgrams obedience study Burger A: However, Milgram’s research (and Burger’s)suffer from a lack of ecological validity, since in real life teachers are not asked to electrocute students, nor were wartime Germans asked to do this by the Nazis. The artificial and unusual nature of the supporting research might count against the theory.

Answer 5

Agency Theory also explains events like the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide and the ethnic cleansings in the Balkans in the ‘90s and in Syria today when these crimes are ordered by authority figures. Application

Answer 6

Agentic state is not inevitable: • 35% of Milgram’s p’ts did not obey- they remained autonomous in the face of legitimate authority. Agency theory does not explain these individual differences (expand) • An objection to Agency Theory is the idea of moral strain, which is supposed to go away when people enter an Agentic State. Milgram observed distress in the participants who obeyed (like crying and shaking), not the ones who disobeyed, which goes against the theory. • In contrast to the study by Hofling (1966), Rank & Jacobson (1977) found that 16 out of 18 nurses failed to obey orders from a doctor to administer an overdose of the drug Valium. In this later study the nurses did not adopt an agentic state.

Answer 7

70 in total made up of 41 females and 29 males. • Ranged in age from 20-81 years.

Answer 8

Burger followed the same procedure as Milgram (variation 5)- learner has a heart condition) • However,hestoppedhisexperimentat150volts instead of proceeding to 450. Also, only a 15 volts shock was administered to the real participant to lead them to believe shocks were real. • (seeafewpagesaheadinyourbookletfordifferences between this study and Milgram’s) • Immediately after the experiment p’ts are debriefed in a similar way to Milgram’s experiment- they were told that the shocks were not real and introduced to the confederate.

Answer 9

• Results are similar to those of Milgram’s (from over 45 years ago) • Time and cultural changes have not had an effect on obedience • Therefore, situational factors such as legitimate authority are most important in influencing whether or not individuals obey.

Answer 10

Screening1:Telephonecallfromresearcher. • Tofindoutwhowouldreactbadlytotheexperiment • Tofindoutwhomightbefamiliarwiththe experiment. • Screening 2: At the university campus • Questionsaboutmentalhealth.Forexample,the Beck Anxiety inventory was applied. • Interviewswithfurtherquestionsregarding suitability

Answer 11

Follows the same as baseline study but has 2 confederates instead of 1. • The second confederate is also a ‘teacher’. • Confederate 1= teacher 1 • Confederate 2= the learner • Real p’t = teacher 2 • A clinical psychologist supervised all trials with instructions to stop the experiment if the p’t was becoming overly stressed.

Answer 12

Therewerenosignificantdifferencesbetween obedience rates of males and females. (M= 67% F= 73%) • Aself-reportquestionnairewhichmeasuredempathic concern and desire for personal control found the following: • Empathic concern- no significant difference between obedient and disobedient participants • Desire for personal control- disobedient p’ts scored significantly higher on desire for personal control.

Answer 13

Burger’ssampleof70peopleislargerthanMilgram’s sample of 40. • Itcoversawideragerange(Milgramrecruited20-50 year olds, Burger 20-81 year olds) and two thirds of Burger’s sample were women, whereas Milgram’s were all male. This means the sample can be more easily generalised to the wider population. • However, when you add up all Milgram’s samples across all his Variations, there are many more than 70 and Milgram did test women in Variation 8. Burgeralsoexcludedalotofpeoplefromhisfinal sample; for example, people with emotional issues or some education in Psychology. This may have affected the results (Milgram used a wider range of types of people). • This suggests..... The sample used in Burger’s study was too psychologically ‘robust’ to represent the wider population. • In line with Milgram, Burger also used a volunteer sample- why might this be a problem?

Answer 14

Milgram’s original procedure is very reliable because it can be replicated. In 1974, Milgram published the results of his 19 Variations, which all replicated his baseline 1963 study. Burger is replicating aspects of Variation 5 (heart condition to test for empathy) and Variation 17 (model refusal) as well as Variation 8 (testing women). Burger followed Milgram’s script wherever possible and used the same confederates every time. This means that his study is reliable too. By filming the whole experiment, Burger adds to the inter-rater reliability because other people can view his participants’ behaviour and judge obedience for themselves.

Answer 15

Milgram’s study was criticised for lacking mundane realism because the task is artificial – in real life, teachers are not asked to deliver electric shocks to learners. This criticism still applies to Burger’s study. In other ways the study is valid. Because the participants were paid fully in advance, we can be fairly sure it was social pressure that made them continue shocking, not a cost/benefit calculation about whether they personally would gain or lose money. • However, stopping the study at 150V may be invalid. Perhaps participants who were prepared to go to 165V would still have dropped out later. It is a huge assumption to say they would have continued to 450V. The “model refusal” group, in particular, might have had second thoughts as the shocks got stronger.

Answer 16

How was the study more ethical than Milgram’s? • Burger believes his study avoids the ethical problems of Milgram’s original. Burger screened out participants who were likely to be distressed by the study. The experimenter was a trained clinical psychologist who could identify signs of distress and would stop the experiment if anyone seemed to be disturbed by what was happening.. • The study was approved by the university Ethics Panel, who had the power to shut it down if it looked like anyone was being harmed. Burger reduced the test shock from a painful 45V to a mild 15V. He also stopped the study at 150V so he didn’t force anyone to “go the distance” to 450V, which reduced many of Milgram’s participants to tears (and three of them fainted). How was the study unethical? • Despiteanattemptatbeingethical,therearestillethical criticisms. Burger deceived his participants just as Milgram had done – the shocks weren’t real, the learner’s cries were a tape recording, the learner and second teacher were confederates. • Hedidnotgetinformedconsent(aswithMilgram,this was advertised as a memory study), although he did debrief participants afterwards. • TheBPSEthicalGuidelinessayparticipantsmustnotbe distressed; even though no one was reduced to tears, the procedure was surely distressing for at least some participants. Ethics Balanced c

Answer 17

Opportunity sampling is the sampling technique most used by psychology students. It consists of taking the sample from people who are available at the time the study is carried out and fit the criteria you are looking for.

Answer 18

This is a sampling technique which is defined as a sample in every member of the population has an equal chance of being chosen. This involves identifying everyone in the target population and then selecting the number of participants you need in a way that gives everyone in the population an equal chance of being picked.

Answer 19

Stratified sampling involves classifying the population into categories and then choosing a sample which consists of participants from each category in the same proportions as they are in the population.

Answer 20

Self-selected sampling (or volunteer sampling) consists of participants becoming part of a study because they volunteer when asked or in response to an advert.

Answer 21

Opportunity sampling is convenient; it saves researchers time and effort and takes little preparation unlike other techniques such as stratified sampling

Answer 22

It suffers from bias; the sample is unrepresentative of the population as it is drawn from a very specific area (such as one street in one town) so findings cannot be generalised. Also, the researcher has complete control over who is selected so may avoid certain people (researcher bias)

Answer 23

Free from researcher bias; the researcher has no influence over who is selected, and this prevents them selecting people who they think may support their hypothesis

Answer 24

Difficult and time-consuming; complete list of the target population may be difficult to obtain Sample may still be unrepresentative; although random sampling is more likely to get a representative sample compared to other techniques

Answer 25

Specific subgroups can be chosen according to the variables considered to be important by the researcher. This increases control over possible extraneous variables. ☺Produces a representative sample; it is designed to accurately reflect the composition of the population, so generalisation of findings is possible.

Answer 26

Time consuming process and those who are selected may not agree to take part

Answer 27

☺Collecting a sample is easy; it requires minimal input from researcher and so is less time-consuming than other techniques ☺Can be a good way to get specialised group of ppts (purposive sampling) e.g. if you want to study the behaviour of medical students, you would place an advert in a medical school rather than a shopping centre

Answer 28

Volunteer bias; asking for volunteers may attract certain people (e.g. helpful, keen, curious) which might effect how far findings can be generalised

Answer 29

Respondents record their own answers. ➢The questions are predetermined (i.e. structured). ➢They are provided in written form and there is no face-to-face contact with another person.

Answer 30

Closed Questions •Has a fixed number of possible answers. •Restrict the participants to a predetermined set of responses and so generates quantitative data (i.e. can be counted) “Have you enjoyed this psychology lesson– yes / no”

Answer 31

Open Questions •Invites respondent to provide their own answers. •Allows the participant to answer however he/she wishes and so generate qualitative data (i.e. descriptive data which cant be immediately counted) “How did you feel about todays psychology lesson?”

Answer 32

1. Checklist A type of question where participants tick those which apply 2. Likert Response Scale A type of question where participants rate, on a scale, their views/opinions to a question 3. Ranking Scale A type of question where participants place a list of items, in their preferred order.

Answer 33

Questions must be clear – avoid ambiguous questions! ◦ Questions must not be leading questions – i.e. not state the Q in a way which might lead to a particular answer. ◦ Keep it simple & clear (don’t use complicated words) ◦ Start with questions that will encourage respondents to keep going (e.g. easy closed questions and ones that don’t make them feel anxious) ◦ Be sensitive, avoid personal questions ◦ If you must, collect personal information at the end ◦ Avoid hard ‘memory questions’ ◦ Pilot and modify the questionnaire Researcher effect = where the researcher’s beliefs and expectations are unwittingly communicated to the ppt and affect the validity of the answer given. ◦ Don’t use questions that make assumptions Problem Questio

Answer 34

Easy to analyse because data is in numbers (quantitative data) which can be summarised using averages as well as simple graphs. This generally makes it easier to draw conclusions, for example because you can make comparisons. + Answers are more objective because they are more likely to be interpreted in the same way by any researcher.

Answer 35

May not permit people to express their precise feelings because the researcher determined the choice of answers. Therefore, data collected may be low in validity and tends not to uncover new insights. - Oversimplifies reality and human experience because it suggests that there are simple answers - whereas people are likely to actually think several possible answers would reflect their views.

Answer 36

Provides rich details of how people behave because they are given free range to express themselves. Participants can express what they actually think rather than being restricted by preconceived categories. This increases the validity of the data collected. + The fact that participants can provide any answer means that researchers may collect unexpected findings. With closed questions the researcher makes decisions about likely answers and this closes off any unusual possibilities.

Answer 37

More difficult to draw conclusions because there are likely to be a wide range of respondents' answers. Therefore, a researcher may look for patterns rather than using descriptive statistics. - Interpreting what people mean is likely to be subjective - each researcher may have a slightly different view of what a participant actually meant.

Answer 38

a set of pre-conceived ideas about certain people, often negative, which leads us to make generalisations.

Answer 39

treating a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, because of their skin colour, sex, sexuality, etc

Answer 40

They were ‘normally adjusted’ boys from white middle-class protestant families. • They had never met each other • They were divided into equally matched groups on educational and athletic ability based on information from parents and teachers.

Answer 41

• 22boysisnotalargesample.Onlyboyswereused,so the results may not generalise or girls or mixed sex groups. • Crucially,theywereallchildren,sotheresultsmaynot generalise to adults. • Theboysweresupposedtobe“allAmerican”types:white, bright and sporty. This wasn’t entirely representative of young Americans back in the ‘50s and it certainly isn’t representative of America today, where whites make up 50% of school intake, with the other 50% being Hispanic, African American and Asian American. • Therefore the study was............ • Gender and culture-biased.

Answer 42

Since it involves observation, there are problems with reliability in this study. The observers were only with the boys for 12 hours a day and could not see or overhear everything that went on. • Despite this, Sherif took pains to make the study more reliable. He used a numbered scoring system for the boys’ friendship patterns, which collected quantitative data. He also used multiple observers on occasions, creating inter-rater reliability. Where possible, he tape recorded the boys’ conversations, so they could be played back and analysed later • In addition to this, other studies have failed to replicate the same results. For example, Tyerman & Spencer found that competition did not increase hostility. However, the boys in this study knew each other which implies that prejudice is more likely to occur when people do not already know each other.

Answer 43

The study shows how competition and frustration creates hostility towards outgroups. In society, this suggests that discrimination and violence could be reduced if jobs, housing, education and other opportunities were shared more fairly between different groups, such as ethnic groups or social classes. This is the basis for a lot of left-wing political thinking. The study also shows that hostility can be reduced if groups are made to interact and work together towards common goals. It is not enough for them to be “mere presences” living alongside each other. This suggests that immigrants should be made to take up the host culture’s language, education and pastimes. This is the basis for a lot of right-wing political thinking.

Answer 44

The study has high ecological validity. • This is because it is carried out in a real-life setting (Robber’s Cave summer camp). • This is a strength because it means that Sherif was recording natural behaviour. • C/A: How can we include counter-argument? • Despite this Sherif manipulated situations, for example.............................. which means that behaviour was not entirely how it would be otherwise. • such as the camp counsellors not intervening until the boys were actually ready to fight each other.

Answer 45

Strength, immediacy and number

Answer 46

Status, authority or age of the source.

Answer 47

Proximity or distance between the source and target. (but can also relate to ‘time’)

Answer 48

How many sources and how many targets are in the social situation

Answer 49

They will have more obedience if they.. have legitimate status are immediate are greater in number

Answer 50

S I N can have a multiplicative effect on the target • As S I N of the sources increase so does the social impact they have on the target. • BUT only up to a point (psychosocial law) e.g. like a light bulb in a dark room. One light bulb has a dramatic effect. Two improves the lighting condition a bit more. But keep adding more and more and the effect becomes less pronounced and noticeable.

Answer 51

There is a divisional effect of social impact. • The number of targets to be influenced affects the impact of the source (one source has less impact when they are trying to have an impact on numerous targets).

Answer 52

Sedikides & Jackson- field expt. New York • Asked visitors not to lean on a railing. • Manipulated strength of source- zookeeper uniform (58% obedience) or tee-shirt and shorts (35% obedience) • Immediacy- when in same room (61%) in adjacent room (7%) • Divisional effect- 1 or 2 visitors/targets (60%) 5 or 6 visitors/targets (14%) • Demonstrates support for SIT by demonstrating the importance of strength, immediacy and number • Can you use Milgram/Burger as evidence? • Yes- they demonstrate the effect of immediacy- the influence of the authority figure being in same room. This changes in M’s study when orders are given over the telephone.

Answer 53

Social impact theory can be useful to explain how people like politicians enhance their social influence. For example, they adopt a strong, persuasive mode of communication (strength), they talk face-to-face to voters (immediacy) and address smaller groups rather than larger crowds to avoid the divisional effect (number).

Answer 54

Social impact theory ignores the role of individual differences. It paints people as passive receivers of others behaviour towards them, not taking into account the nature of social interaction in terms of how people react differently to the source -Some will be more resistant than others. • This implies that SIT simplifies the nature of human interaction and therefore is not seen as a ‘dynamic’ explanation of obedience.

Answer 55

Questionnaires are not the only way to ask people questions that enable them to represent their thoughts (self report) – interviews also involve asking people to answer questions. Questionnaire = written form Interview = ‘real time’ respondent answers question as it is presented by interviewer

Answer 56

structured interview 2. semi-structured interview 3. unstructured interview

Answer 57

Predetermined questions delivered by an interviewer who does not probe beyond the answers received but may answer questions from the interviewee.

Answer 58

Canbeeasilyrepeated(reliability) • Easiertoanalysethan unstructured interviews as answers are more predictable • Interviewercanprovideextra information i.e. explaining what a question means • Theinterviewersexpectationsmayinfluencethe answers the interviewee gives (researcher bias) • Pptsmayfeelreluctanttorevealpersonalinfowhen face-to-face • Interviewersdonothavetheopportunitytodelvein deeper and ask ppts to expand of their responses or enquire further into a different direction - may lack validity Types

Answer 59

Theinterviewersexpectationsmayinfluencethe answers the interviewee gives (researcher bias) • Pptsmayfeelreluctanttorevealpersonalinfowhen face-to-face • Interviewersdonothavetheopportunitytodelvein deeper and ask ppts to expand of their responses or enquire further into a different direction - may lack validity

Answer 60

Some questions are predetermined but also new questions are developed as the interview proceeds. Questions can be adapted. As the predetermined questions are answered, it may lead to new questions.

Answer 61

No questions are decided in advance.

Answer 62

Moredetailedinfocanbeobtained from each respondent than in a structured interview as questions are shaped by interviewee (validity) • Canaccessinfothatmaynotbe revealed by predetermined questions • Couldmakerespondentfeelmore relaxed – open up more

Answer 63

Moreaffectedbyinterviewerbiasthan structured interviews as the interviewer is developing questions on the spot and may be prone to issues such as asking leading questions • Requires well-trained interviewers, which may be difficult to obtain and makes research more expensive

Answer 64

A researcher’s expectations (bias) may encourage certain behaviours in ppts. The result is that the researcher’s expectations / biases are fulfilled. The interviewer's nonverbal behaviours may express agreement/disagreement E.g. smiling, leaning forwards, nodding or saying ‘uh-huh’ = agreement / approval Sitting with arms crossed, frowning, sighing = disapproval

Answer 65

An interviewer may be unaware of this ‘nonverbal leakage’ but they are powerful messages Therefore interviewers are trained to remain neutral and minimise biasing the answers an interviewee gives Interviews are also standardised so there is a clear protocol for the interview and the same procedures followed for every interviewer. →respondent can ask the interviewer questions, such as asking for an explanation of a question →questions can be adapted during the interview

Answer 66

Can be given out to lots of people and therefore the researcher can collect large amount of data • People may feel more willing to reveal confidential info on a questionnaire because the presence of interviewer may make them feel they are being judged by someone else Interviews-• Numbers of ppts are restricted because of the time it takes to conduct the interview and expense of training and employing interviewers • People may reveal more info because a skilled interviewer can encourage more thoughtful responses

Answer 67

+ Self-report methods are a means of finding out what people think and feel. That is not true of other methods you will study, such as observation. + Can be easily repeated so that data can be collected from large numbers of people relatively quickly because they can all do it at the same time. + Respondents may feel more willing to reveal personal/confidential information in a questionnaire than in an interview because they feel more anonymous.

Answer 68

- People don't always tell the truth! This may be because they simply don't know what they think about a particular topic or don't know how they would behave in a particular situation. Or their lack of truthfulness may be because they don't want to look foolish or unlikeable so they present themselves in a way that makes them 'look better' - this is called a social desirability bias. - The group of people involved (called the sample) may be biased because only certain kinds of people fill in questionnaires - literate individuals who are willing to spend time filling them in.

Answer 69

Locus of Control refers to a person’s perception of personal control over their own behaviour. It is measured along a dimension of ‘high internal’ to ‘high external’ (diagram)

Answer 70

People with this personality type believe... they are responsible for their own actions and are less influenced by others around them.

Answer 71

People with this personality type believe... their behaviour is largely beyond their control and are more likely to be influenced by other people.

Answer 72

Strickland found that those students who participated in the 1960s civil rights protests in the US were more likely than students who didn’t partake to have an internal locus of control. • Suggesting therefore that internal LOC are more likely to resist to unjust authority.

Answer 73

Sherif found that boys would show favouritism for boys in their own group and hostility toward boys outside their group because of competition for a resource e.g. points and prizes. This implies that there is some credibility to the theory. Although this is a field experiment and arguably had good ecological validity, the original paper tells how the boys needed some serious provocation in order to trigger any explicit display of prejudice or discrimination i.e. the experimenters secretly raided one groups cabin to make it look like the other group had attacked them. Therefore intergroup competition may not necessarily lead to hostility. C/A Jane Elliot would argue that the mere presence of groups creates prejudice, suggesting that RCT is not a complete theory. She found that prejudice occurred by simply creating two groups (blue eyes and brown eyes) and highlighting differences between them.

Answer 74

This theory is good at explaining prejudice as a result over a resource e.g. wars that occur over land. Superordinate goals can be applied to combat prejudice and discrimination in the modern world (even small conflicts in schools/business)

Answer 75

The theory can be considered reductionist because it does not take into account individual differences e.g. some people are not prejudice and therefore would not respond to the pressures of a resource e.g. individuals with an authoritarian personality may be more likely to be prejudiced

Answer 76

Psychology as a science – a theory should be falsifiable (possible to demonstrate that the claims of the theory are wrong) – RCT produces testable hypotheses and such allow disproof. This shows that RCT is a scientific theory, adding credibility to this explanation for prejudice.

Answer 77

• Prejudice arises from conflict between groups • Could be conflict of interest of competition for resources, dominance or land • When two or more groups are striving for the same goal, prejudice and hostility will intensify Can you think of two more examples? E.g. Tutsi and Hutu tribes in Rwanda lived peacefully and inter-married, until political rivalry between the groups caused mass genocide of almost 1 million Tutsis... superordinate goal

Answer 78

It’s widely recognised that people tend to identify with their groups. They also tend to have negative views about some other groups – “outgroups”. But why do some outgroups attract hostility and discrimination? Tajfel wondered what made the Nazis (powerful and rich) want to destroy his Jewish family and neighbours (who were weak and very poor). It didn’t seem to Tajfel there was any “realistic conflict” going on, because the Polish Jews weren’t in competition with the Nazis and didn’t have anything the Nazis needed. So, he looked for a different explanation.

Answer 79

The group to which we have membership

Answer 80

Another rival group to which we do not have membership

Answer 81

Consists of our unique qualities, personality and personal characteristics.

Answer 82

Stage 1: Social categorisation We categorise people (including ourselves) to understand the social environment. Stage 3: Social identity We also distinguish ourselves by membership to certain social groups and the attributes of that group. If social identity is favourable e.g. our football team wins several matches then personal identity is positive. The self-esteem of the individuals within the group are higher. If social identity is not favourable e.g. our football team loses several matches then personal identity is negative. The self-esteem of the individuals within the group are lower. Therefore, group memberships are often a source of self-esteem. Stage 3: Social comparison We do this in order to raise the positive attributes of the in-group so that we have a positive social identity. This then enhances our personal identity and increases our self-esteem. There are two processes we use to achieve this: In-group favouritism This is the tendency for group members to see the individuals within their group as unique and different (in-group heterogeneity bias) and in a favourable light. Negative out-group bias This is the tendency to view members of the out-group as all the same (out-group homogeneity bias) and in an unfavourable light.

Answer 83

A class of third grade pupils were divided over the course of a week depending on eye colour. During the first part of the week they were told that people with blue eyes are better, faster and have more desirable traits, while brown-eyed people are lazy and dishonest. Elliott then told them that she had made a mistake, and that it was the other way around, so that for the second half of the week it was reversed. She found that the ‘dominant group’ displayed prejudice, hostility and discrimination towards the ‘inferior group’ (even if children had previously been good friends). She also found that on several measures of performance the dominant group performed better academically.

Answer 84

Evidence- Tajfel and/or Jane Elliott • In addition, you can evaluate these to highlight the shortcomings the theory. For example: • Tajfel’s research is experimental with high control- therefore giving the theory scientific credibility, HOWEVER, they involve artificial tasks which lack mundane realism. • In contrast to this Elliott’s study was carried out in the real life setting of a school, providing the theory with real life evidence.

Answer 85

• -toreducingprejudice-effortstoincreaseself- esteem • Forexample,strategiesthatincreasepeople’ssenseof personal identity may reduce prejudice, especially if they raise self-esteem at the same time. Counselling (especially using Cognitive Therapy) may be one way of doing this. • SITcanbeappliedtoourunderstandingoffootball hooliganism which results from fans membership to the team they support. This is because their social i

Answer 86

Shortcomings- • There are gaps in the theory, such as why some people cling to social identity for their self-esteem more than others. A theory of personality like Adorno’s Authoritarian Personality might explain this better Shortcomings- • There are gaps in the theory, such as why some people cling to social identity for their self-esteem more than others. A theory of personality like Adorno’s Authoritarian Personality might explain this better However, SIT provides an explanation for why discrimination occurs even when the outgroup is no threat to the ingroup and there is no competition over resources. If self-esteem is based on social identity, then some people need to put down outgroups to feel good about themselves However, SIT provides an explanation for why discrimination occurs even when the outgroup is no threat to the ingroup and there is no competition over resources. If self-esteem is based on social identity, then some people need t

Answer 87

Hooliganism’ is the term used broadly to describe disorderly, aggressive and often violent behaviour perpetrated by spectators at sporting events. In the UK, hooliganism is almost exclusively confined to football. • The Heysel disaster of 1985 was when a ‘charge’ of Liverpool fans at rival Juventus supporters caused a wall to collapse, resulting in 39 deaths. • In April 2000, Christopher Loftus and Kevin Speight, two Leeds United supporters, were stabbed to death in Istanbul ahead of a UEFA Cup semi-final, in what the coroner’s inquest described as ‘an organised ambush’ by Turkish fans. • There have been lots of measures put in place in order to try to reduce violence. The Football Offences Act (1991) created specific offences of throwing missiles onto pitches, participating in indecent or racist chanting and going onto the pitch without lawful authority. • Other measures include segregating opposing fans and banning identified hooligans. • There were 1,929 football banning orders in force in August 2017. • There were 1,638 football-related arrests in the 2016-2017 football season. • This was a 14% decrease of 257 on the previous season. • The football-related arrest rate in the 2016-2017 season was 4 arrests per 100,000 attendees. • Of the 1,638 football-related arrests the three most common offence types were public disorder (31%), violent disorder (21%) and alcohol offences (16%). • In December 2018 violence broke out between Stoke City and Port Vale in a local derby when their under- 21s teams met and this resulted in 11 people being arrested. • In January 2019 violence broke out between Millwall and Everton supporters at a football match which involved racist chanting. One Everton fan suffered a knife wound to the face and a police officer was also injured. • The ‘Kick It Out’ campaign is an anti-racism group which battles racism and discrimination in English football. • Policing football matches in London cost the Metropolitan Police nearly £6.7 million during the 2016/2017 season. This money could be spent on tackling other types of crime in society. • More than 1,800 supporters were injured at football grounds in 2016-2017 and treating these individuals costs the NHS money. • Football violence is costing the taxpayer money which could be better spent on education, care for the elderly etc. What theories and concepts from social psychology can be used to explain the key question? (AO2) Realistic conflict theory (Sherif,1966) Realistic conflict theory would explain violence between football fans as resulting from the competition between them. The teams will be in competition cup final (a limited resource), and this competition will lead to intergroup conflict and hostility. This can be seen when football fans name-call and chant aggressively to rival supporters, and they can also be physically aggressive to rival teams. This behaviour is similar to the boys in Sherif et al.’s (1954, 1961) study of prejudice in which he created hostility between the two groups by putting them in competition against one another in a camp tournament. According to realistic conflict theory the way to overcome this hostility is to introduce superordinate goals which would require the different football team supporters to work together to achieve a common goal, for example they could have a charity football match which raises money for a cause which they all care about. Social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) This theory of prejudice would explain football hooliganism as arising between football fans who are using social categorisation to categorise their social world in terms of their in-group (their football team) and any other football fans as the out-group. They will then use social comparison to compare their football team and its supporters to other teams so that they see themselves in a favourable light e.g. ‘Liverpool fans are the greatest fans in the world’ while displaying negative out-group bias to other football teams. This negative out- group bias will manifest itself in hostility e.g. name calling at football matches which could escalate into violence. They will do this because through this social identification with their football team they will enhance their personal identity and their feelings of self-esteem. According to this theory to overcome prejudice the different football supporters will need to come together and have equal status contact in order to overcome divisions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ as this theory states that the mere presence of another group is enough to cause prejudice which in this case would be violence at the football matches. ALTERNATIVE The authoritarian personality (Adorno et al., 1950) It may be that using these situational theories provides a limited explanation of football violence because it does not explain why some people go to football matches every week and are never involved in any name- calling or fighting and then why there are some people who are listed as football hooligans who have criminal records for violence at a number of football matches. Therefore, it may be that dispositional explanations of human behaviour are needed in order to explain these individual differences. The authoritarian personality (Adorno et al., 1950) is a personality type which means the individual is more likely to display prejudice and hostile attitudes against minority groups, and this is the result of an overly strict and harsh upbringing, so people with this personality type may be the ones who are more likely to start trouble at football matches.