Topic 3: Social Influence

Question 1

Conformity (majority influence)

Answer 1

Changing your behaviour or thinking to match those around you.

Question 2

Levels of conformity - Kelman 1958

Answer 2

1) Compliance
2) Identification
3) Internalisation

Question 3

Compliance

Answer 3

• Occurs when an individual accepts influence because they hope to achieve a favourable reaction from those around them. An attitude or behaviour is adopted not because of its content, but because of the rewards or approval associated with its adoption.
• Compliance does not result in any change in the person’s underlying attitude, only in the views and behaviours they express in public.

Question 4

Internalisation

Answer 4

• Occurs when an individual accepts influence because the content of the attitude or behaviour proposed is consistent with their own value system.
• This can lead to acceptance of the group’s point of view both publicly and privately.

Question 5

Identification

Answer 5

• A form of Influence where an individual adopts an attitude or behaviour because they want to be associated with a particular person or group.
• Identification has elements of both compliance and internalisation, as the individual accepts the attitudes and behaviours they are adopting as right and true (internalisation), but the purpose of adopting them is to be accepted as a member of the group (compliance).
• A person changes their behaviour and their private beliefs but only while they are in the presence of the group they are identifying with.

Question 6

Explanations for conformity

Answer 6

• Normative social influence (NSI)
• Informational social influence (ISI)

Question 7

Normative Social Influence

Answer 7

• Is a form of influence whereby an individual conforms with the expectations of the majority in order to gain approval or to avoid social disapproval.
• NSI is usually associated with compliance and identification.

Question 8

Informational social influence

Answer 8

• ISI is when an individual actually believes the facts and information given by the majority because people believe that others have more information than we do.
• Because this involves changing both public and private attitudes and behaviour, this is an example of internalisation.

Question 9

Supporting evidence for Normative Social influence

Answer 9

Schultz et al, 2008 - hotel towel usage

Conducted an experiment to determine the effectiveness of normative messages designed to promote towel re-use in hotel rooms.
He found that hotel guests exposed to the normative message that 75% of guests reused their towel each day, reduced their own towel usage by 25%.

Question 10

Supporting evidence for informational social influence

Answer 10

Wittenbrink and Henley 1996 - Racial Beliefs

Found that participants exposed to negative information about African Americans (which they were led to believe was the view of the majority) later reported more negative attitudes towards black individuals.

Question 11

Outline the Asch Experiment

Answer 11

Soloman Asch 1956

Aim: To investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.

Procedure: Tested 123 male US graduates. Using a line judgement task, Asch put a naïve participant in a room with 7 confederates. Each participant had to state aloud which comparison line, A B or C, was most like the target line. On 12 of the 18 trials the confederates were instructed to give the same incorrect answer, and the only real participant always answered 2nd to last.
Control experiment: found that participants only made mistakes about 1% of the time, proving that the answer was obvious.

Findings:
- On the 12 critical trials, the average conformity rate was 33% (the real participants conformed on 1/3 of the trials).
- Individual differences: 1/4 of participants never conformed, 1/2 conformed on six or more critical trials and 1 in 20 conformed on all 12 of the critical trials.
- 75% of PPS conformed to the group’s incorrect answer at least once.

Conclusion:
When Asch interviewed his participants afterwards he discovered that the majority of participants who conformed had continued privately to trust their own perceptions and judgements, but changed their behaviour publicly, giving incorrect answers to avoid disapproval from other group members (i.e. they showed compliance).

Question 12

Evaluate Asch’s study

Answer 12

Limitations
- Biased sample (all male students) - Lacks population validity. May have studies psychology - potential for demand characteristics.
- Ethical issues - no informed consent
- Low ecological validity - Used artificial task to measure conformity.
- Lacks temporal validity - A ‘child of it’s time’ - in 1956, the US was in the grip of McCarthyism, a strong anti-communist period when people were scared to go against the majority and so more likely to conform. Studies from the 1970s and 1980s show lower conformity rates (e.g. Perrin & Spencer, 1980).
- Cultural differences - Smith et al. meta-analysis: found that the average conformity rate for individualist cultures was lower than for collectivist cultures.

Strengths:
- Unconvincing confederates - Mori and Arai overcame this problem by using glasses with specialised polarizing filters instead of confederates. In each group, three participants wore identical glasses, with one participant wearing a different set, thereby causing them to observe that a different comparison line matched the target line. As in Asch’s studies, the participants stated their answers publicly, with the minority participant always going third. Mori and Arai found that on average,about a third of the femalesconformed (similar to Asch) but there was no real conformity for the males The fact that women tended to conform more readily than men may be due to cultural differences, as all participants were Japanese, and/or generational changes in the 55 years since Asch’s study.
- Lab experimental method - Able to control extraneous variables and replicable.
- Applications - e.g. conformists in Nazi Germany

Question 13

What Factors did Asch discover affect conformity?

Answer 13

• GROUP SIZE: Less than 3 people: 1=3% conformity 2 = 13% conformity but 3+ people increased the % of conformity to 33%
• UNANIMITY - The more unanimous the group is in their decision, the more likely people will conform. Social support condition: levels of conformity went from 33% to 5.5%
• DIFFICULTY OF TASK - When the comparison lines (A, B, C) were made more similar in length it was harder to judge the correct answer and conformity increased. The more difficult the task, the greater the conformity.
• ANNONYMITY (being unknown) - Significantly lowers the rates of conformity. I.e. when participants were allowed to answer in private conformity decrease

Question 14

Social Roles

Answer 14

The behaviours people in certain positions are expected to hold.

Question 15

De-Individuation

Answer 15

The process of becoming less self-aware and therefore less in control of own behaviour whilst in a crowd.

Question 16

Outline Phillip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment

Answer 16

Aim: To examine whether people would conform to the social roles of a prison guard or prisoner, when placed in a mock prison environment.

Procedure:
- Set up mock prison in basement of Stanford University
- Used 24 ‘emotionally stable’, male, student volunteers. They were paid $15 a day for participating.
- Randomly assigned 12 to become prisoners as 12 as prison guards.
- To increase realism, prisoners were arrested in their homes and delivered to prison - blindfolded, strip-searched, deloused and issued uniform and an ID number.
- Guards were told by Zimbardo, who was acting as superintendent, to keep order in the prison.
- The prisoners daily routines were heavily regulated. There were 16 rules to follow, enforced by guards working shifts three at a time
- prisoners were de-individuated (only refereed to by their ID numbers.)
- Guards had their own uniform - wooden club, handcuffs, keys and mirror shades. They were told they had complete power over the prisoners, for instance deciding when they could go to the toilet.

Findings:
- Within 2 days prisoners rebelled against their treatment. Guards retaliated with fire extinguishers.
- Guards harassed prisoners constantly by conducting frequent headcounts, sometimes in the middle of the night. The guards took up their roles with enthusiasm, creating opportunities to enforce the rules and punishing slight misdemeanours
- The behaviour of the guards threatened the prisoners’ psychological and physical health. For example: after the rebellion was put down prisoners became subdued, anxious and depressed, 3 prisoners were released early because they showed signs of psychological disturbance, and one prisoner went on hunger strike.
- The study stopped after 6 days instead of the planned 14 days.

Conclusions:
Revealed the power of the situation to influence people’s behaviour. Guard’s, prisoners and researchers all conformed to their social roles.

Question 17

Evaluate Zimbardo’s study into conforming to social roles

Answer 17

Strengths:

• HIGH INTERNAL VALIDITY - Researchers controlled certain variables e.g. the selection of PPs. Emotionally stable volunteers, who were psychologically and physically examined prior to the experiment, were selected and assigned randomly to their roles, meaning that the researchers attempted to eliminate any reseracher bias.
• REAL LIFE APPLICATION - Zimbardo argues that conformity to social roles can be sued to explain events in Abu Ghraib, a military prison in Iraq, notorious for the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers in 2003 and 2004. Situational factors, such as lack of training, unrelenting boredom and no accountability to higher authority were present in both the SPE and Abu Ghraib.Zimbardo was a key witness to the case.
• QUANTITATIVE DATA collected during the experiment revealed that 90% of the prisoners’ conversations were about prison life. Prison 416 expressed the belief that the prison was real but run by psychologists instead of the government.
• had a significant impact on social reform efforts, particularly in understanding and improving prison systems.The experiment’s findings have led to increased awareness of the dangers of situational influence and the potential for abuse of power, prompting changes in how prisons are managed and how individuals are treated.has led to a greater focus on the environment and the importance of creating more humane and ethical prison environments.contributed to the separation of juvenile offenders from adult inmates in some jurisdictions, as the study demonstrated the potential for violence and exploitation of younger individuals in prison settings.

Weaknesses:

• THE PROBLEM OF DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS - Banuazizi and Movahedi (1975) - presented some details of the SPE to a large sample of students, who’d never heard of the study. The vast majority correctly guessed the purpose of the study and what the findings would be. This suggests that the behaviours shown in the SPE was a result of demand characteristics.
• LACK OF MUNDANE REALISM - Participants could’ve been merely acting rather than genuinely conforming to their roles. They’re behaviour could’ve been based on stereotypes. One guard said that he based his behaviour off of a guard he saw in a movie and this would explain why the prisoners’ rioted as that’s what they expected prisoners to do.
• LACK OF RESEARCH SUPPORT: THE BBC PRISON STUDY (REICHER AND HASLAM, 2012) - Created a similar situation to Zimbardo’s study, the prisoners ended up taking over the prison and humiliating the guards.
• ETHICAL ISSUES - Lack of fully informed consent by participants, prisoners were unaware that they would be arrested (deceit). By acting as a researcher and superintended, and paying the participants, Zimbardo made it hard for them to leave. However Zimbardo carried out debriefing sessions for several years afterwards and concluded that there were no lasting negative effects. The ethical issues means the study isn’t replicable, which decreases it’s validity.
• UNGENERALISABLE RESULTS - As he only used white, male students.

Question 18

Outline Milgram’s study (1963) into obedience
(The voice feedback study)

Answer 18

Aim:
- Milgram was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. He was interested in how easily ordinary people could be influenced into committing atrocities, for example, Germans in WW1.

Procedure:
- 40 male volunteers
- Two confederates: an experimenter and another “volunteer”
- The two volunteers drew lots to determine their roles, but this was rigged so that the confederate was always the ‘learner’ and the only real participant was the ‘teacher’.
- The learner was strapped to a chair with electrodes.
- The teacher was required to test the learner.
- The teacher was told to administer an electric shock every time the learner made a mistake, increasing the level of shock in 15volt increments from 15volts (slight shock) to 450volts (danger-severe shock).
- When the teacher refused to administer a shock, the experimenter was to give a series of verbal prods/orders:
- Prod 1: Please continue
- Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue
- Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue
- Prod 4: You have no other choice but to continue

The voice feedback study:
- The learner sat in another room, giving mainly wrong answers and received his (fake) electric shock in silence up until the 300v level.
- At 300-315V the learner pounded on the wall and gave no response to the next question.
- After 315V he said/did nothing.

Findings (the VFS):
- 26 of the 40 participants (65%) continued to the max shock level (450V), despite the chock generator being labelled ‘Danger severe shock’ at 420V and ‘XXX’ at 450V.
- All participants went to 300V with only 5 (12.5%) stopping there, the point at which the learner first objected.

Conclusion:
- Ordinary people are likely to follow the orders of an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being.

Question 19

Situation Factors In Obedience

Answer 19

1) Proximity
2) Location
3) Power of uniform

Question 20

Milgram’s proximity variations

Answer 20

1) Proximity study: T+L seated in same room = 40% obedience rate

2) Touch proximity condition: T forced L’s hand onto shock plate = 30% Obedience rate

3) Experimenter absent study: Experimenter left the room and gave orders via a phone call = Only 21% continued to max shock level.

Question 21

Milgram’s location variation

Answer 21

Milgram moved his study from the psychology LAB AT YALE UNIVERSITY to a RUN-DOWN OFFICE. Obedience rates dropped slightly but not significantly with 48% delivering the max shock.

Question 22

Power of uniform

Answer 22

Milgram’s original study = 65%
Removal of uniform (white lab coat) = 20% Obedience rate

Question 23

Evaluate Milgram’s study into obedience

Answer 23

Strengths:
- VALIDITY: The control of variables through set prods, a unified setting, and procedure increases internal validity of results. Counterpoint: Low ecological validity due to lab environment + presence of experimenter decreases internal validity.

• Hofling et al (1966): nurses were told over the phone by a ‘doctor’ to give twice the advised dosage of a made-up drug to patients- 21 out of 22 obeyed (95%), supporting Milgram’s findings that people are obedient and strengthening the external validity of the findings
• ‘HISTORICAL VALIDITY - 1960’s America was very confirmative, however (Burger, 2009) and Blass (1999) add historical validity to Milgram’s study.
• RESEARCH SUPPORT FOR THE POWER OF UNIFORM - Bushman, Durkin and Jeffery (2000). Children aged 5-7 tended to select the man currently wearing a police uniform as being able to make an arrest rather than the actual policeman who was in ordinary clothes. Suggests children’s initial perceptions of authority are dominated by visual cues, rather than the socially conferred status.

Weaknesses:
- GENDER BIASED SAMPLE: Primarily studied white males, used volunteer sample which is self-selective and not representative of American population. However Milgram did repeat once the experiment with female participants and found the same obedience rate at males (65%), however he did note some differences in higher levels of tension and agitation how they interacted with the experimenter and learner.

• ETHICAL ISSUES - Deception as Milgram lied about the true aims of the study (said it was an experiment investigating “learning”). Participants believed they were giving a real shock, to a real volunteer. Protection of participants - exposure to stressful situation + cause visible distress. Prods removed right to withdrawal. Experiment cannot be replicated - decreasing reliability. Counterpoint: Milgram DEBREIFED participants fully after experiment, and followed up after a period of time to ensure they came to no harm (83.7% said they were please they had participated).
• LACKS INTERNAL VALIDITY (Perry 2012) - One of Milgram’s assistants, Taketo Murata, split the participants into ‘believers’ and ‘doubters’ and found that those who believed the shocks to be real were much more likely to only give low intensity shocks than the ‘doubters’.

Question 24

How does Blass (1999) support Milgram’s study into obedience?

Answer 24

Adds historical validity - Blass (1999) carried out a statistical analysis of obedience studies carried out between 1961 and 1985. By carrying out a correlation analysis relating each study’s year of publication and the amount of obedience it found, He discovered no relationship whatsoever i.e. the later studies found no more or less obedience than the once conducted earlier.

Question 25

How does Burger (2009) support Milgram's study into obedience?

Answer 25

Adds historical validity - A more recent study (Burger, 2009) Found levels of obedience almost identical to those found by Milgram some 46 years earlier.

Question 26

How does Mandel (1998) challenge Milgram's study into obedience?

Answer 26

Proximity: Reserve police battalion 101 - Mandel claims that situational determinants of obedience are not borne out by real-life events: - In 1942, the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 received orders to carry out a mass killing of Jews. Their commanding officer made an offer to his men that anyone who didn't feel up to this duty could be assigned another task. Despite the presence of factors shown by Milgram to increase defiance (e.g. close physical proximity to their victims and the presence of disobedient peers), only a small minority took up Trapp's offer and the vast majority carried out their order without protest. - Mandel concludes that using 'obedience' as an explanation for these atrocities serves only as an alibi, masking the real reasons (e.g. antisemitism) behind such behaviours.

Question 27

Bushman's Study (1988)

Answer 27

A female researcher dressed either in a 'police style' uniform, as a business executive or as a beggar, stopped people in the street and told them to give change to a male researcher for an expired parking meter. Results (Obedience rates): Police uniform = 72% OR Business exec = 48% Beggar = 52%

Question 28

Legitimate authority

Answer 28

- A person who is perceived to be in a position of social control within a situation. - The definition of the situation - People tend to accept definitions of a situation that are provided by a LA. In Milgram's study, the participants themselves perform the action of shocking the learner but let the authority figure define it's meaning. - LA requires an institution - If an authority figure's commands are of a potentially harmful or destructive form, then for them to be perceived as legitimate they must occur in some sort of institutional structure (e.g. a university, the military)

Question 29

Agency theory

Answer 29

Milgram 1974: The agency theory suggests that when we obey we move from an autonomous state to an agentic state (agentic shift).

Question 30

Autonomous state

Answer 30

In the autonomous state we perceive ourselves to be responsible for our own behaviour and so we feel guilty for what we do.

Question 31

Agentic state

Answer 31

In the agentic state we perceive ourselves to be the agent of someone else's will; the authority figure commanding us is responsible for what we do so we feel no guilt.

Question 32

agentic shift

Answer 32

- When we move from an autonomous state to an agentic state. - When we move form seeing ourselves as being responsible for our actions to someone else being responsible for them. - Responsibility is shifted onto the authority figure who is commanding use, so we no longer feel guilty for the behaviour and are therefore more likely to obey and carry it out.

Question 33

How does the agentic state relate to the legitimacy of authority?

Answer 33

The agentic state is often triggered by the perceived legitimacy of authority. When individuals perceive an authority figure as having the right to give commands, they may enter into an agentic state and follow those commands, even if they would not normally do so. The authority is justified by the individual's position of power in the social hierarchy.

Question 34

Self image and the agentic state

Answer 34

One explanation as to why people adopt an agentic state is the need to maintain a positive self-image. As the action is no longer their responsibility, it no longer reflects their self-image.

Question 35

Agentic state Binding Factors

Answer 35

- In all situations there is a social etiquette that plays part in regulating our behaviour. - People remain in an agentic state because they don't want to deal with the hassle of overcoming the situation. - In Milgram's study in order to break off the experiment, the participant must breach the commitment made to the experimenter, and they do not want to be seen as rude. So the participant remains binded into obedience.

Question 36

Evaluate Agentic state and Legitimacy of authority

Answer 36

Advantages: - Support of agentic state by MILGRAM who proposed people shift back and forth between autonomous and agentic states. Demonstrated when experimenter in his study kept saying any harm to the learner was their responsibility resulting in more participants giving higher shocks. COUNTERARGUMENT: This fails to explain the very gradual and irreversible transition that LIFTON (1986) found in his study of GERMAN DOCTORS WORKING AT AUSHWITZ (supports desensitisation - the idea that continuous acts of evil over time changes the way people think and behave) - REAL-LIFE LEGITIMACY OF AUTHORITY - Justifies harming others as people authorise another person as capable of making their judgements for them so their own don't matter hence they will carry out harmful acts on another person's say so, for example MY LAI VILLAGE where 500 unarmed elderly, women and children were killed on a commander's instructions. Only the commander was convicted. COUNTERPOINT: is it dangerous to use agentic state + legitimacy of authority as a justification for harmful acts? Does it encourage it by removing individual responsibility? - OBEDIENCE IN COCKPIT STUDY - Studied backbox recordings of plane accidents where crew actions were a contributing factor in the crash and found excessive dependence on the captain's authority, some officers noticed that the captain was taking a risky plan and still went along with it assuming that the captain new what he was doing (Tarnow). - BLASS & SCHEMIDT (2001) - Found support for the idea of legitimate authority. They showed video footage of the Milgram experiment to a collection of students and asked them who was to blame for the behaviour of the teachers. Most believed the experimenter to be to blame since he was the one with legitimate authority in the situation. They believed obedience to be caused by legitimate authority. Disadvantages: - Lifton (1986) ^ - Dangerous? ^ - AGENTIC STATE OR JUST PLAIN CRUEL? ZIMBARDO'S SPE supports the idea that some people just have sadistic natures rather than agentic state. Within just a few days, the guards inflicted rapidly escalating cruelty on increasingly submissive prisoners despite the fact there was no obvious authority figure instructing them to do so.

Question 37

Social Impact Theory

Answer 37

- Social impact theory explores how people conform to the group they are in, follow leaders and imitate each other (Conformity, Obedience and social identity theory) - Social impact theory proposes that people instinctively fall into in groups and react negatively towards out groups.  - The theory was developed by Latané, who argues that every person is potentially a “source” or a “target” of social influence – sometimes both at once. He thinks there are rules or laws at work.

Question 38

Division of impact - Diffusion of Responsibility

Answer 38

Being part of a large group makes people feel anonymous and this reduces their feelings of responsibility. We are less likely to feel pressure to act if others are there to share the pressure. It might make them less likely to obey orders.

Question 39

Social Force

Answer 39

This is a pressure that gets put on people to change their behaviour - If it succeeds that is social impact. Social force is made up of strength, immediacy and numbers.

Question 40

The bystander effect

Answer 40

(Darley and Latané, 1968) suggests that people are less likely to help someone with other people around.

Question 41

Piliavin et al (1969)

Answer 41

Subway study: - The aim of this study was to investigate whether train passengers were more likely to help someone who appeared to be ill, rather than one who appeared to be drunk. - The results showed that helping was very high. The cane victim received help on 62 out of the 65 times the researcher was conducted, and the drunk victim received spontaneous help on 19 out of 38 times the researcher was conducted. On 60% of the 81 trials where spontaneous help was give, more than one person offered help.

Question 42

Social Force Research

Answer 42

Sedikides & Jackson (1990) Field experiment at Zoo to see if participants would obey orders of not leaning on the rails: - Uniform = higher obedience - Immediacy = Increased obedience (as time passed, more visitors started ignoring the instruction not the lean on the railing). - DOR - The larger the group size, the more disobedience was observed.

Question 43

Research for diffusion of responsibility

Answer 43

Latane & Darley (1968) Procedure: Participants sat in booth discussing health issues over an intercom. One of the speakers was a confederate who would pretend to have a heart attack. Findings: One other participant = Went for help 85% of the time 2 other participants = Went for help 62% of the time 4+ participants = went for help 31% of the time Evaluation: - Pilivian claimed the results of the study could be interpreted differently from what Latane and Darley claimed. Stating that inaction could be interpreted as individuals assuming someone else had helped with the heart attack. - Pilivian also found evidence of the opposite to be true. In his subway study he discovered people were more willing to help with bigger crowds around. - Bickman replicated Latane's study but with the variable of proximity to the 'victim'. The participants were aware they were closest to the 'victim' in some conditions and joint closest in another. They support the idea of DOR in the joint condition but found people were more likely to help when they knew they were closest.

Question 44

Kitty Genovese

Answer 44

Real life case study: Kitty was violently stabbed outside her apartment in New York. Nobody acted immediately or went out to help despite the attack lasting for 30 minutes. This incident led to the coining of the term 'bystander effect'. Researchers have found that onlookers are less likely to intervene if the situation is ambiguous. In the case of Kitty Genovese, many of the 38 witnesses reported that they believed that they were witnessing a "lover's quarrel," and did not realize that the young woman was actually being murdered.

Question 45

Social Identity theory - intergroup discrimination

Answer 45

Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football teams etc.) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world. Examples of SI: - Tajfel's minimal Groups Paradigm - Sherif's - Robbers Cave Study (1950)

Question 46

Evaluate social impact theory

Answer 46

Strengths: - Growing body of research: Latane & Darley (1968) into DOR, Taijfel (1970) into social identity theory and Milgram (1963) into obedience. - All aspects of social impact. - More detailed than Milgram's Agency Theory, Supports Milgram's suggestion that the strength of an authority figure effects obedience but there are other situational factors as well like numbers of people involved and immediacy of orders. - Supports Milgram's suggestions of others taking responsibility for our actions. DOR states that we feel less responsible for our actions when others are there to take the blame. This increases the external validity of social impact on behaviour. Limitations: - Doesn't explain effect of location - No discussion of moral strain - SIT pays a lot of attention to the characteristics of the person giving the orders but not much on the person receiving them. This fails to account for individual difference and ignores some individuals being naturally more compliant that others. - Research has issues with extraneous variables - Treats people as passive receivers of other's behaviour

Question 47

Hofling et al (1966)

Answer 47

Hospital Study Of Obedience: Field experiment to see if female nurses will obey a doctor even when asked to break hospital procedure. Confederate pretending to be a doctor calls nurses and orders them to administer an overdose of a drug. 21/22 (95%) of the nurses obeyed .

Question 48

Authoritarian personality and who it is proposed by

Answer 48

- Proposed by Adorno in the 1950s - A personality typified by strict compliance to traditional values, belief in absolute obedience and submission to authority.

Question 49

Dispositional

Answer 49

Explanations of behaviours such as obedience emphasise them being caused by an individual's own personal characteristics rather than situational influences within the environment.

Question 50

Characteristics of an authoritarian personality

Answer 50

- Extreme respect for authority - Contempt towards 'inferior' people - Black & white view - Very obedient to authority figures - Authoritarian aggression

Question 51

Where does an authoritarian personality come from?

Answer 51

- Formed during childhood as a result of strict parenting. - Adorno got many of these ideas from Sigmund Freuds psychodynamic approach. Anger + hostility towards strict parents is repressed and replaced with uncritical views. It also displaced onto people perceived as 'weaker'.

Question 52

F-Scale

Answer 52

- Theodore Adorno tested 2000 white male Americans survey known as the California F-Scale (Facist-scale).​ - The F-Scale was a series of questions that determined how authoritarian a person's thinking was, with an interviewee answering how much they agreed or disagreed with certain value statements. - Those who scored high on the F-scale = excessive respect to those in higher power and increased levels of prejudice to minority groups.

Question 53

Right-wing authoritarianism

Answer 53

- Altemeyer (1981) refined authoritarianism as right-wing authoritarianism. - Right wing authoritarianism: A cluster of personality variables (conventionalism, authority submission and authoritarian aggression) that are associated with a 'right wing' attitude to life. - Found a strong correlation between RWA and obedience (via a self-shock study)

Question 54

Evaluate the authoritarian personality

Answer 54

Strengths: - Research to support: Elms and Milgram found a positive correlation between high obedience and high score on F scale. In addition, the results also revealed that obedient participants were less close to their fathers during childhood [all of the participants in Milgram’s original experiment were male] and admired the experimenter in Milgram’s experiment, which was the opposite for disobedient participants. Challenge: Research was correlational and therefore cannot establish cause and effect! - Altemeyer's reformation of AP suggests right-wing is considered authoritarian and more obedient. There is also evidence for left-wings to be less obedient: Replicated Milgram's study on a game show where participants were ordered to give themselves electric shocks then were interviewed to determine their political stance and those who were more left tended to give lower shocks. There was a strong correlation between RWA scores and obedience in the task. Limitations: - **Alternative Explanations**: In Nazi Germany, millions of people obeyed and were involved in the holocaust at some level.  It is difficult to believe that all of these had an authoritarian personality.  Mass obedience of this sort seems to be much easier to explain using situational rather than dispositional factors. - **Alternative Explanation**: Milgram, Bickman, Hoffling, Bushman all showed differences in situational factors causing obedience, such as uniform, location and proximity. This therefore suggests that situational variables do contribute towards increasing or encouraging obedient behaviour. Whilst, some evidence does show that some people have the disposition for it too. Perhaps a theory which considers both situational and dispositional factors would be a more accurate explanation of obedience rather than looking at perspective. - **Deterministic:** by explaining that obedience is a result of unconscious ego defense mechanisms, this demonstrates hard psychic determinism. Due to this happening unconsciously, it explains that behaviour is not a result of our own choosing. This is a weaknesses because it suggests that we do not have choice over obedient behaviour, and when given an order, that is potentially harmful to someone else, we might have the predisposition to blindly follow. As a consequence this could be problematic when considering crimes committed during wars or other examples were an order was given, as it suggests that individuals didn’t have personal choice, or free will over their actions as our criminal system suggests . - **Reductionist**: The questionnaires narrow someones personality down to a singular, quantitative score. Its reducing the complexity of someone’s behaviour down to this, which is over simplifying how complex our personality actually is. As a consequence, whilst we might be able to get a clear indication of who has or hasn’t got this personality type, this might not be that useful if it’s only giving us a limited understanding. - **Research method** – correlation: Being correlational we cannot be sure that the authoritarian personality caused the obedience.  Therefore, the dispositional explanation lacks research that supports the cause and effect of obedience, because other factors may have contributed to it, for example low level of education could just as easily be responsible for both. Also problems with using self-report techniques. Risk of social desirability bias. Personality is difficult to empirically test. Adorno also had sample bias in his original study - US males are not representative of the entire population. **Social Sensitivity**: This theory suggests that overly harsh parenting can cause someone to have an authoritarian personality. This could be viewed as a negative behaviour, especially when put within the context of the problems of blind obedience. Therefore suggesting that parents and parenting styles are to blame when individuals follow orders that are destructive or damaging. As a consequence, this can ethical implications within society whereby parents are reluctant to implement appropriate behaviour modification techniques, such as punishment, when raising their children. Researchers and psychologists need to be mindful of how this explanation is communicated to society and used in the real world in order to prevent this. - Education may determine authoritarianism and obedience - Research has generally found that less educated people are consistently more authoritarianism than the well educated. Milgram found the same tendency with obedience.

Question 55

Key Study: Elms and Milgram 1966

Answer 55

P: 20 'obedient' pps and 20 'defiant' pps from Milgram's shock study. - Completed MMPI (which measured a range of personality variables) and F scale, and asked open-ended questions. Findings: - Little difference between obedient and defiant PPs on MMPI. - Higher levels of authoritarianism in obedient pps. - Obedient pps reported being less close to fathers and often described them negatively. - Obedient pps saw the authority figure in Milgram's study as admirable.

Question 56

Explanations of Resistance to social influence

Answer 56

1) Social support 2) Locus of control

Question 57

Social support

Answer 57

- The presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey can help others to do the same. They act as models to show others that resistance to social influence is possible. - People are more confident to resist obedience if they can find an ally who is willing to join them. - Social support breaks the unanimous position of the majority and frees pressure form the group.

Question 58

Evaluation of Social support

Answer 58

- Milgram's shock study showed that obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the genuine P was joined by a disobedient confederate. - In Asch's conformity study conformity rates dropped from 33% to 5.5% when one of the confederates disagreed with the group and gave a different response. - Allen and Levin (1971) found that introducing a dissenter in an Asch-style study greatly reduced conformity levels, even if the dissenter wore thick glasses and claimed they had poor eyesight, supporting that having social support increases resistance to social influence. - Social Support in the real world: The Rosen Strasse Protest - In 1943, a group of women protested in Rosen Strasse Berlin, where the Gestapo were holding up to 2,000 Jewish men. Despite threats from the Gestapo the women's courage eventually prevailed and the Jews were set free. Supports Milgram's research in real life because those women defied the authority of the Gestapo together, given courage by the collective action of their peers.

Question 59

Locus of control

Answer 59

Rotter 1966 Loc refers to an individual's perception about the underlying cause of events in his/hers life.

Question 60

Externality (external LOC)

Answer 60

- Individuals who tend to believe that their behaviour and experienced is caused by events outside of their control. - Tend to approach events with a more passive and fatalistic attitude than internals, taking less responsibility for their actions and being less likely to display independent behaviour and more likely to accept the influence of others.

Question 61

Internality (Internal LOC)

Answer 61

- Individuals who tend to believe that they are responsible for their behaviour and experience rather than external forces. - More likely to display independence in thought and behaviour. People high in internality rely less on the opinions of others, which means they are better able to resist social influence.

Question 62

Why are people with an internal LOC more likely to resist social influence?

Answer 62

- People with an internal LOC are more likely to be able to resist pressure to conform or obey. - If someone takes personal responsibility for their actions and experiences (good or bad) they are more likely to base their decisions on their own beliefs. - People with a high internal LOC are more self-confident, more achievement oriented, have higher intelligence and less need for social approval.

Question 63

Evaluation of Locus of Control

Answer 63

Advantages: - Supporting research by Holland: Repeated Milgram's study and measured whether ps were internal or external LOC. 37% of internals did not continue to highest shock level (they showed independence). Only 23% of externals did not continue. As internals showed greater resistance, this support increases the validity of the LOC explanation. COUNTERPOINT: However, 63% (majority) of those with an internal LOC still obeyed, and as 23% with an external LOC refused, LOC cannot fully explain why some people obey. -  Spector (1983) used Rotter’s locus of control scale to determine whether locus of control is associated with conformity. From 157 students, Spector found that individuals with a high internal locus of control were less likely to conform than those with a high external locus of control, but only in situations of normative social influence, where individuals conform to be accepted. There was no difference between the two groups for informational social influence. This suggests that normative social influence, the desire to fit in, is more power than informational social influence, the desire to be right, when considering locus of control. Disadvantages: - Contradicting research - Twenge et al (2004) found that over 40 years, people became more resistant to obedience but more external in their beliefs. This suggests that LOC is not a suitable explanation for resistance. - Limited role of LOC - Rotter et al (1982) found that LOC is only important in new situations. If an individual has conformed or resisted influence in a past situation, they will repeat the same behaviour when confronted with a similar or identical scenario. This limits the use of LOC in explaining resistance. - Based on self-report - subjective - Ignores situational factors as an explanation for obedience

Question 64

Majority influence

Answer 64

Majority influence refers to the social pressure to conform to the norms of the greater part of the group.

Question 65

Minority influence

Answer 65

minority influence refers to the social pressure exerted by the smaller part, their norms and ideas. ** Leads to internalisation or conversion.**

Question 66

Factors affecting minority influence

Answer 66

1) Consistency 2) Commitment 3) Flexibility 4) The process of change 5) The snowball effect

Question 67

Consistency

Answer 67

- This states that minorities who consistently express their views are taken more seriously and have a larger influence to the general public. - Two types of consistency: Diachronic (consistency over time) and synochronic (consistency between members). - Consistency gives the impression that the **minority are convinced**,they are right and make the **majority reconsider** their breliefs

Question 68

Diachronic consistency

Answer 68

i.e. consistency over time - the minority don't change their views.

Question 69

Synchronic consistency

Answer 69

i.e consistancy between it's members - all members aggree on their views

Question 70

Research support for consistency

Answer 70

Key Study: **Moscovici's study - consistency** **Blue-Green study** Procedure: - Groups of 4 naive pps and 2 confeds - Shown blue slides varying in intensity but confeds called then green. - Group 1: Confeds answered consistently - Group 2: Confeds answered inconsistently Findings: - Consistent minority influenced naive pps to say green on 8% of the trials. - Inconsistent minority exerted very little influence.

Question 71

Commitment

Answer 71

Minorities who display commitment to their view are more likely to influence the majority as it **displays confidence and courage.** Also known as the augmentation principle, those **willing to sacrifice for their belief** show greater commitment, encouraging others to consider their own beliefs. Real life application: The **suffragetes** were willing to be arrested, wnderwent hunger strikes, beating and deaths for their belief.

Question 72

Flexibility

Answer 72

Minorities are typically powerless against the majority so they have to **bragian their views.** Minorities who are shown to have bragained are generally taken more seriously. If not flexible, minorities can be seen as rigid and unbending, which can be viewed as **unreasonable**, especially when faced with a valid counter-argument.

Question 73

Research support for flexibility

Answer 73

Nemeth (1986) - Participants in groups of 4, had to agree on the amount of compensation they would give to a victim of a ski-lift accident. - 1/4 in each group was a confederate and there were two conditions: 1) when the minority argued for a low rate of compensation and reused to change his position (inflexible). 2) When the minority argued for a low rate of compensation but compromised by offering a slightly higher rate of cpmensation (flexible) Findings: Nemeth found that in the inflexible condition, the minority had little or no effect on the majority, however in the flexible condition, the majority was much more likely to compromise and change their view.

Question 74

The process of change

Answer 74

When all factors are followed, the majority think more deeply about the issue. This may lead to conversion of ideas.

Question 75

The snowball effect

Answer 75

If these factors are used by the minority group, more and more people will have their minds changed, and will persuade more and more of their friends and family to do the same. This is known as the snowball effect, and results in the minority view becoming the majority view.

Question 76

Evaluate minority Influence

Answer 76

Strengths: - Real world case studies: suffragettes = commitment, black lives matter = consistent - Research support: Nemeth (flexibility), Moscovici (consistency) - Research supporting consistency - Wood et al (1994) meta-analysis of studies similar to Moscovici and found that consistent minorities were most influential. - Research supporting processing - Martin et al (2003) showed a viewpoint and measured participants agreement. One group heard a minority view and one group heard a majority view. People were less likely to change their opinion when exposed to a conflicting viewpoint, if they had heard the minority group’s view, suggesting that this view is processed deeper. Weaknesses - Artificiality - Moscovici’s task was mundane and lacked realism. Often in reality minorities attempt to influence the majority about huge issues surrounding religion, race and gender, sometimes with a “life or death” impact. Research lacks this, which impacts on the external validity of findings. Studies used small sample sixes - less representative. - Countering processing research - Martin’s study had clear majority/minority which are not relatable to real world research. Majorities often have great power and status, whereas minorities face oppression. These are absent from research, meaning that findings are not representative of true life. - Power of minority influence - Moscovici’s study found consistent agreement with a minority was 8%, which shows it is rare for a minority to influence a majority. - Minority influence is only indirectly effective: **nemeth** suggests that the effects of minority influence may be indirect & delayed. Indirect because the majority is only influence on matters related to the specific issue (i.e recycling) and not the issue itself (i.e. global warming). Effects are delayed because they may not be seen in society for a long time. Suggests minority influence has a limited effect in the short-time and genuine social change only occurs after long periods of time. -  **Atkinson et al** (1990) – Students were asked to read out summaries of a discussion on gay rights supposedly written by other students like themselves. Four of the summaries focused on one viewpoint. One of the summaries focused on the other viewpoint. When asked to share their views publicly all of the students tended to favour the majority view. However, when asked to write down their views privately they tended to favour the minority view. It was concluded that the majority creates conformity by the granting or withholding of social approval (compliance) but don’t necessarily create a change of opinion. On the other hand the minority have the power to create internalisation (a real shift in privately held views). - Alternative explanation: **Mass & Clark** (1984) The study involved heterosexual participants. Participants were presented with arguments advocating for gay rights. These arguments were attributed to either: A heterosexual minority (ingroup) OR A homosexual minority (outgroup). After exposure to the arguments, participants were asked to evaluate their persuasiveness and indicate whether their attitudes had changed. The heterosexual (ingroup) minority was significantly more persuasive in changing participants’ attitudes toward gay rights. The homosexual (outgroup) minority was met with greater resistance and was less effective in influencing attitudes. Participants were more likely to engage in deeper processing of the ingroup’s arguments, whereas the outgroup’s arguments were often dismissed or ignored. Therefore, minority influence on it’s own can’t explain changes in attitudes as we are more likely to be swayed by people like ourselves… our in-group.

Question 77

Social change

Answer 77

Occurs when a society or section of society adopts a new belief or way of behaving which then becomes widely accepted as the norm.

Question 78

List the processes of social change through minority influence

Answer 78

1. Drawing attention to an issue 2. Cognitive conflict 3. consistency of position 4. the augmentation principle 5. The snowball effect

Question 79

1. Drawing attention to an issue

Answer 79

Minorities can bring about social change by drawing the majority's attention to an issue. Differences in views creates a conflict that they are motivated to reduce.

Question 80

2. Cognitive Conflict

Answer 80

The minority creates a conflict between what majority group members currently believe and the position advocated by the minority. This causes majority group members to think more deeply about the issues being challenged.

Question 81

3. Consistency of position

Answer 81

Minorities tend to be more influential in bringing about social change when they express their arguments consistently (over time and with each other).

Question 82

4. The augmentation principle

Answer 82

If a minority appears willing to suffer for their views, they are seen as more committed and so they are taken more seriously by others.

Question 83

5. The snowball effect

Answer 83

Minority influence initially has a relatively small effect but then this spreads more widely as more and more people consider the issue being promoted, until it reaches a 'tipping point', at which point it leads to wide-scale social change.

Question 84

Give a real life example of social change through minority influence

Answer 84

The suffragettes: 1. Drawing Attention to an issue: The suffragettes used educational, political and militant tactics to draw attention to the fact that women were denied the same voting rights as men. 2. Cognitive conflict: The suffragettes created a conflict for majority group members between the existing status quo (only men allowed to votes) and the position advocated by the suffragettes (votes for women). Some people dealt with this conflict by moving towards the position advocated by the suffragettes, others dismissed it. 3. Consistency of position: The suffragettes were consistent in theirs views, regardless of the attitudes of those around them. Protests and political lobbying that continued for years and women rights organisations and protests still occur today. 4. The augmentation principle: Because the suffragettes were willing to risk imprisonment or even death from hunger strike, their influence became more powerful. 5. The snowball effect: Universal suffrage was finally accepted by the majority of people in the UK. Other examples: Black lives matter campaigns, Ganahi's salt march (1930)

Question 85

Social Cryptoamnesia

Answer 85

Social change has occurred and people know a change has occurred but can’t remember how it happened.

Question 86

Social norms interventions

Answer 86

Attempt to correct misperceptions of the normative behaviour of peers in an attempt to change the risky behaviour of a target population. An example: 'Most of Us don't drink and drive'

Question 87

Social change through majority influence

Answer 87

I- f people perceive something as the norm, they alter their behaviour to fit that norm. - Correcting misinterpretations about 'actual' norms using social norms interventions. - E.g. 'Most of us don't drink and drive' campaign resulted in a drop of drink driving by 13.7%.

Question 88

Bickman obdedience study (1974)

Answer 88

Bickman (1974) tested obedience using three experimental scenarios. In each scenario, a young, white male experimenter was the authority figure. Each scenario was repeated with the experimenter dressed as a guard, milkman or a civilian wearing smart clothing. 1) experimenter asked an approaching pedestrian to pick up a paper bag and, if necessary explained why he couldn't do it (because of a bad back). If the participant followed the order, it meant they obeyed the authority. 2) experimenter asked a pedestrian to give a dime to a stranger (confederate) standing at a parking meter. The experimenter explained that the person at the parking meter had no change, and he didn't have any change as well. If the participant attempted to look for change or offered some change to the stranger, they obeyed the authority. 3) The experimenter approached a person standing alone at the bus stop and gave them instructions to wait for the bus on the other side of the pole. The experimenter pointed at the sign intended for bus drivers that said "No standing" and explained it's a new law that the bus won't stop to pick them up if they don't move. F: In each scenario, Participants were more likely to obey authority figures dressed as a guard than authority figures dressed in a milkman uniform or no uniform. 

Question 89

Evaluate social influence and social change

Answer 89

- Barriers to social change exist even when people agree that change is necessary. **Bashir et al**. (2013) found that people often resist social change because they do not want to be associated with the minority, who are often perceived as 'deviant'. This reluctance can significantly hinder the progress of social movements. Example: Minority influence examples in history, such as the suffragette movement or the LGBTQ+ rights movement, faced resistance due to people's reluctance to be associated with these minority groups. - Research supporting normative influences - **Nolan** found that displaying messages encouraging less energy use were more effective when they suggested that other people were doing the same thing. This shows that NSI can be used to create social change. **Schultz et al** hotel towel re-usage. - Countering NSI research - **Foxcroft** reviewed 70 studies where the social norms approach was used to reduce student alcohol use. Only few participants reduced their drinking quantity but did not reduce drinking frequency. - Methodological issues in social influence studies - Moscovici’s conversion explanation of minority influence argues that minority and majority influence involve different cognitive processes. That is, minority influence causes individuals to think more deeply about an issue than majority influence (conformity). However, **Mackie** disagrees and presents evidence that it is majority influence that may create deep processing if you do not share their views (because we tend to believe the majority share similar beliefs as us and so if they don’t we consider it carefully to understand why this is the case). This means that a central element of minority influence has been challenged and may be incorrect, casting doubt on the validity of Moscovici’s theory. - The processes of social change are supported by **Dickerson et al.** (1992): Participants who had made a prior commitment (signing a poster on saving water and answering a questionnaire on their use of water) spent less time showering than participants who had not done so. Thus, prior commitment to prosocial behaviour results in positive behaviour change - There are positive implications for the economy when it comes to social change: Accepting minority rights (e.g. women's rights, civil rights, gay rights) means that the workplace is open to more diverse attitudes and practices. this in turn can boost productivity and creativity. However there can also be negative economic implications (i.e. Recycling waste by separating it into categories means different bin collections followed by several processes to convert/transform the waste, all of which are expensive). - Social change happens slowly and is not without setbacks. This slow pace means that it is difficult to track the progress of social change accurately and to know what the exact drivers of the change initially were

Question 90

Jensess' jelly beans experiment

Answer 90

Aim: To investigate the effect of group discussions on the accuracy of people judgements. Procedure: He used an ambiguous situation that involved a glass bottle filled with 811 white beans. His sample consisted of 101 psychology students, who had to estimate how many jellybeans were in the jar before and after a group discussion. Findings: Jenness found that nearly all participants changed their original answer closer to the one's decided by their group, when they were provided with another opportunity to estimate the number of beans away from the group. These results demonstrate the power of conformity in an ambiguous situation and are likely to be the result of informational social influence because they answered away from the group so social pressure was low and uncertainty was high. The participants in this experiment changed their answers because they believed the group estimate was more likely to be right, than their own individual estimate, thus internalisation occured. Evaluation: - Might have involved normative social influence as well as Informational social influence: In the study, the second estimate was made away from the group (in private) so there shouldn't have been mmuch social pressure to confrom. However, when making their final estimates pps were told to write a brief report of what had happened in the group. PPs may have thought that this was going to be read by the group and find out their estimates, which may have influenced them to give estimates closer to the group. - Ignores conformity in non-ambigious situations: his findings are limited to situations where the answer is completely ambiguous. When ppl conform in real life the situation is usually not as ambiguous. In real life, sometimes people comply to attitudes and behaviours they don't even agree with.