Social Psychology Flashcards
What is internalisation?
A type of conformity when a person genuinely accepts the groups norms both privately and publicly. Likely to be permanent and also happens even when the other group members are not present.
What is identification?
Identification is a type of confirmity which occurs when a person identifies with a group that they value so publicly changes opinions/behaviour to achieve this goal. Privately they may not entirely agree.
What is compliance?
This is a type of confirmity involving “going along with others” in public but privately not changing perosnal opinions or behaviour. It is the most superficial type of confirmity and may stop as soon as group pressure stops.
What is ISI?
Informational social influence is an explanation for confirmity. It says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we believe they have the correct information. It may lead to internalisation.
What is NSI?
Normative Social Influence is an explanation for confirmity that says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we want to be accepted/approved of/liked. It may lead to compliance.
What is research support for ISI?
Lucas et al asked students to give answers to mathematical problems that were easy or difficult. There was greater confirmity to incorrect answers when they were difficult rather than easy. This is a demonstration that people confirm in situations where they believe other people have the correct information.
*George Lucas is the director of Star Wars which uses lots of maths and physics.
What is a criticism of NSI?
NSI does not affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way. nAffiliators are people who have a greater need for being in some sort of relationship with others and are more likely to conform. (McGhee and Teevan found that students high in need of affiliation were more likely to conform)
*Ghee is an indian clarified cooking butter and tea is grown in India too.
What is a criticism of ISI and NSI as explanations for conformity?
The theory says that conformity is either due to NSI or ISI. But often both processes are involved.
What is the method of Asch’s experiment?
- 123 American male undergraduates
- Each naive participant tested with a group of 6-8 confederates
- First 6 trials confederates gave right answers then started making errors for the next 12 trials.
- All confederates gave the same wrong answer
- Trial = four lines on a card. Of the final three lines, only one was the same length as the first line and participants had to say which one was the same length.
What were the results of Asch’s experiment?
Naive participant gave a wrong ansewr 36.8% of the time. 25% of particpants did not conform at all which means 75% conformed at least once. When particpants were interviewed aftewards they said they conformed to avoid rejection (NSI).
What was Asch’s group size variation?
Asch repeated the experiment with different numbers of confederates. A majority of one or two didn’t have much effect but 3 or more exerted significant influence (no huge difference between three or more than three.)
What was Asch’s unanimity variation?
Asch aded a confederate who disagreed with the others, sometimes giving a right answer and sometimes a wrong answer. The presence of a dissenting confedarate reduced conformity by a quarter.
What is Asch’s task difficulty variation?
Asch made the line-judging task more difficult (i.e. more difficult to spot the line that was the same size as the first one). Conformity increased when the task was more difficult suggesting ISI plays a greater role in harder tasks.
What are 3 weaknesses of Asch’s study?
- A child of its time. Done in 1950s. Perrin and Spencer repeated it in 1980 with engineering students and only one student conformed. (Is this because they were engineering students or because it was 1980?)
- Artificial situation and task/demand characteristics.
- Limited application of findings - Asch only studied US men. Conformity rates are higher in collectivist cultures such as China.
What is the method of Zimbardo’s study?
- Set up a mock prison in basement at Stanford University
- Volunteer sample who were screened for emotional stability
- Randomly assigned roles of guards and prisoners
- ‘Prisoners’ arrested in their homes by local police. Blindfolded, strip-searched, deloused and issued a uniform and number
- Prisoners routines heavily regulated with 16 rules enforced by guards
- Prisoners only addressed by their number and not name.
- Guards had uniform, wooden clug, handcuffs, keys and mirror shades. Given complete control e.g. could even decide when prisoners went to the toilet.
What were the results of Zimbardo’s study?
- After a slow start, the guards became enthusiastic. They became a threat to the prisoners’ well being and the study was stopped after 6 days instead of 14.
- After two days the prisoners rebelled and the guards retaliated with fire extinguishers. Prisoners then became subdued and depressed.
- Frequent headcounts and frequent punishments and rule enforcements.
- One prisoner released on the first day and two on the fourth day due to showing signs of psychological disturbance.
- One prisoner went on hunger strike and was force fed and put him in a tiny dark closet.
What are the three situational variables that Milgram changed in his variations on his original experiment?
Proximity (see graph for results), Location (did the experiment in a run down office building, obedience fell to 47.5%), Uniform (ordinary member of the public supervised the experiment whilst the lab coat psychologist “was called away to a telephone call”. The obedience rate dropped to 20%.
