the rest of Social Influence

Question 1

Social support and resistance to social influence

Answer 1

It means people are able to resist social influence. In one Aschs variations of his study, he gave the naive an ally. This broke unanimity of the majority. Led to a drop in conformity from 33% to 5.5%.

Question 2

Social support and resisting obedience

Answer 2

Research shows people are less likely to obey if there is another person resisting it. Disobedient peer acts as a role model. In milgrams study, when there was an ally, only 10% of people shocked up to 450V.

Question 3

The natural locus of control

Answer 3

It refers to people controlling their own behaviours. It measured along a scale of high internal to high external. Internality relies less on the opinion of others, whereas externality tend to believe that things come down to chance and are out if their control

Question 4

Internality and resistance to social influence

Answer 4

High internals are active seekers of information that is useful to them. Less likely to rely on other peoples opinions. More likely to become leaders rather than followers. Less likely to give into interrogations.

Question 5

Case studies for locus

Answer 5

Twenge et al- meta analysis of young Americans. Children are becoming more external.
Atgis- external locus are more easily persuaded than internal
Gore & rotter- African Americans who participated in civil right activities have a stronger internal locus

Question 6

Evaluation for resisitance to social influence

Answer 6

Pros:
. Allen and Levine looked to see if not particularly valid would also be effective in helping participants resist conformity in one condition. Both conditions valid or invalid reduced conformity showing an ally is helpful.
. Real world examples- woman fighting the Gestapo as they were holding 2000 Jewish men. The Jews were set free due to women working together.
Con:
. Although they found relationship between locus of control and normative social influence, they didnt find any correlation between locus and informational social influence, making it not as significant

Question 7

Aims of moscovicis study

Answer 7

To see how consistency impacted conformity

Question 8

Procedure of moscovicis study

Answer 8

Used 6 participants, 2 who were Confederates. There was 3 conditions- either people consistently said the colour was green, people that said it was blue 12 times then 24 times green and then a control group

Question 9

Findings of moscovicis study

Answer 9

The controls group responded green less than 1% of the time. The inconsistent group answered green just over 1% of the time. The consistent groups responded green 8% of the time

Question 10

AO2 for moscovicis study

Answer 10

Lack of ecological validity as it is held in a lab
An artificial task to doesnt mimic real life

Question 11

Behaviour style to convince majority

Answer 11

Consistency- shows you are confident and believe in what you are saying
Committee- augmentation principle- willing to suffer for your cause. Shows dedication and confidence
Flexibility- willing to compromise- people are more willing to listen and understand if you are able to negotiate

Question 12

Evaluate for minority influences

Answer 12

Pros:
. Research support for flexiblity- nemeth and brilmayer- when people are putting forward alternative points, people more likely to compromise than others who are stuck in their ways.
. The real value of minority influence- sharing minority can help broaden the mind and lead to people being more accepting of viewpoints they wouldn’t originally believe in.
Cons:
. Do we really process the minority message? People tend not to spend time processing the minoritys message they just see it as something different so it tends to be less influential rather than more
. Nemeth did a study saying that people only accept the message on the surface. It’s more of a compliance than internalisation so the influence is minimal as they dont accept is within their beliefs

Question 13

What is the snowball effect

Answer 13

Members slowly start moving towards the majority one by one which will gradually grow in size and gain momentum.

Question 14

What is social cryptonesia

Answer 14

Where the minority becomes the majority however no one remembers how

Question 15

Social change

Answer 15

Social change is when the whole society adopts a new belief which becomes the norm. For the positive (recycling or giving the charity) or for the negative (terrorism)

Question 16

Rosa parks and her influence

Answer 16

Refuses to obey apartheid laws and sits on the bus refusing the give up the seat for a white person. She got arrested and illustrates the augmentation principle.

Question 17

Social change through minority influence

Answer 17

1. Draw attention to the issue- the creates conflicts that are motivated to reduce the majority
2. Cognitive conflict- the minority creates a conflict, Which makes the majority think more deeply about the issue
3. Consistency- minority stay consistent in their views which shows dedication.
4. Augmentation principle- they are willing to suffer for there movement
5. Snowball effect- a small effect becomes a big part of society

Question 18

Social change through majority influence

Answer 18

People tend to alter their opinions to fit in with the majority. The gal between the perceived norm and the actual norm is called misperception

Question 19

Social norm interventions

Answer 19

Starts by identifying a widespread misperception relating to a specified risky behaviour within a target population.perception correlation strategies is to communicate to the target population the actual norm concerning particular behaviours. By advertising the actual norms, the hope that recipients will moderate their own behaviour.

Question 20

Example of social norm interventions

Answer 20

‘Most of us dont drink or drive’- this will hopefully make people think more able drinking and driving. Drink driving has dropped. This has led to a positive change in personal attitudes amongst the target population.

Question 21

Evaluation of social change

Answer 21

Pros:
. Social change from the minority, although gradual is very effective, the change doesnt happen over night
Cons:
. Dont want to be perceived a deviant by the majority, so may not want to align themself with the minority
. Limitation of the social norm approach- surveys show that they dont tend to make an impact. For example a survey was taken which shows that students didnt have a lower self report of drinking as a result of the campaigns set out.
. Boomerang effect- people in the minority may like to stand out so if the majority start doing the right thing, they may go back and do the wrong thing to prove a point.