Social Psychology Flashcards
Social Impact Theory
Developed by Bibb Latane and the theory attempted to explain lots of the studies in the 60s and 70s investigating obedience. Three laws that causes people to become a target of social force. They are:
- social force
- psychosocial law
- divisions of impact
Social force
The pressure that gets put on people to change their behavior. It is affected by strength (how much power you believe the person influencing you has), immediacy (how recent the influence was) and numbers (how many people are influencing you).
Latane put his findings into a mathematical model, i=f(SIN)
Psychosocial law
The first source of influence has the most dramatic effect on people.
The more people watching you, the less social force is generated each time
Divisions of impact
Social force gets spread out between all the people it is directed at. It is known as diffusion of responsibility. i = f(1/SIN)
Social impact theory evaluation
Supporting evidence - Milgram’s experiments are very good evidence for social impact theory.
Conflicting evidence - dispositional factors, doesn’t take into account the characteristics of a person.
Reductionist - reduces obedience to passive reaction to authority, does not consider personality factors.
Useful - predict behaviours.
Methodology - most experiments he used to support his theory were done in a lab so not very ecologically valid.
Milgrams agency theory evaluation
Milgrams agency theory evaluation
Supporting evidence - Milgram’s first experiment demonstrated that 65% were willing to obey an authority figure and potentially cause harm, many experienced anxiety and many reported their behaviour was the responsibility of the experimenter. Hofling can also be used.
Conflicting evidence -
Reductionist - Does not explain individual differences and does not explain motivational issues behind obedience.
Useful - Can explain lots of real life atrocities, such as the My Lai massacre. However it is very difficult to define and measure because they are all internal mental processes.
Methodology - experiments not very ecologically valid
Milgrams agency theory
Humans can exist in two states, agency and autonomy
Autonomous state
Act according to your own free will
Agentic state
See themselves as acting as an agent for the authority figure
What was the aim of Milgrams studies into obedience?
To investigate whether ordinary people would follow orders and give an innocent person an electric shock
How and who did Milgram get participants
Put an advert in a newspaper and asked for male participants → volunteer sampling
How many participants were there in Milgrams first study?
40
Where was Milgrams study conducted?
Interaction laboratory at Yale University
Describe Milgrams method
Participants were requested in a local newspaper and in total there were 160 participants. Individual participants were asked into the interaction laboratory and introduced to the experimenter, “Mr Walliams” and the confederate, “Mr Wallace”. In a fake coin toss Mr Wallace was chosen as the learner and the participant was chosen to be the teacher.
Experimenter briefed the participants on how some people may learn better through punishment. The learner was seated in an electric chair and the participant was given a small electric shock to demonstrate it worked. The shock machine went from 15V - 450V. The teacher was told to give an electric shock, increasing in severity, everytime the learner got the answer wrong.
Experiment 1
Remote feedback condition
All participants gave 300 V.
26/40 went to 450 V (65%).
