Unit 1 - Social Influence Flashcards
What are the 3 types of conformity?
compliance, internalisation and identification
What is compliance?
where a person might publicly agree but privately disagrees with a groups views or behaviour.
For example a person may laugh at a joke because their group of friends find it funny but deep down the person does not find the joke funny.
What is the name of the study which shows compliance?
Asch’s line study
What did Asch want to investigate?
whether people would conform to the majority in situations where the answer was obvious
What is the procedure for Asch’s study?
5-7 participants in a group. Each group were presented with a standard line and three comparison lines. Participants had to say aloud which one matched the standard line.In each group there was one real participant and the rest were actors. Which were told to give 12 out of 18 wrong answers
Strengths of Asch’s study?
supports normative influence
internally valid design
Weaknesses of Asch’s study?
ecological validity - lines doesn’t reflect complexity of real life conformity
ethical issues - deception, participant were told it was about perception of lines, so they could not get informed consent. Could cause psychological harm because they might feel embarrassed when nature of the study revealed. However, there was a debrief.
gender bias sampling issues - only on men, results can’t be applied to females. Lacks population validity
What is normative influence?
the desire to be right
- we conform to the behaviours of the group because we don’t want to be embarrassed or left out.
What are the 4 things Asch changed in his other experiments?
- group size
- group unanimity
- difficulty of task
- answer in private
What were the results for different group sizes?
the more confederates more people conformed
What were the results for group unanimity?
people are more likely to agree with the answer when everyone is in agreement
What were the results for increased difficulty of task?
when the lines were made more similar to each other it was harder to judge the correct answer so conformity increased
What is internalisation conformity?
Publicly changing behavior to fit in with the group while also agreeing with them privately.
An example of internalisation is if someone lived with a vegetarian at university and then decides to also become one too because they agree with their friends viewpoint
What is indentification conformity?
when someone conforms to the demands of a given social role in society.
e.g policeman, teacher
What is a good example of identification conformity?
Stanford prison experiment
What did Zimbardo want to investigate?
how readily people would conform to social roles of guard and prisoner in a role-play exercise.
What was the procedure for Stanford prison experiment?
Zimbardo made a prison setting, advertised for people to be guards and prisoners for a fortnight. Participants were randomly assigned. Both groups issued with uniforms and no physical violence was permitted. Zimbardo observed the behaviour of both groups.
What were the findings of Stanford prison experiment?
in short times the prisoner and guards adapt to their roles, within a few hours some guards started harassing the prisoners. Guards started wanting more obedience
What are the strengths of the Stanford prison experiment?
led to ethical guidelines - studies now have to gain ethical approval before conducted
What are the weaknesses of the Stanford prison experiment?
demand characteristics - guards were acting, their behaviour would not be affected by the same things in real life. Means studies cannot be generalized to real life. Low ecological validity
lack population validity - gender bias cannot be applied to females or those from other countries
ethical issues - lack of informed consent by participants as Zimbardo didn’t know what was happened
participants weren’t protected from harm - one participant left because of stress. Zimbardo debriefed them
What is normative influence?
the desire to be liked, people conform to fit in when privately disagreeing with the majority.
What is informational influence?
the desire to be right
- we conform because are unsure of the situation
What is obedience?
type of social influence where a person follows an order from another person who is usually an authority figure
What is the study which explains obedience?
Milgram’s shock study
What was Milgram’s hypothesis?
wanted to know why Germans were willing to kill Jews during the Holocaust. He thought that it might have been because German’s were just evil.
What was the procedure for Milgram’s study?
2 participants drew who would be the ‘learner’ and the ‘teacher’. The draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher and the learner was someone pretending to be a real participant.One room had an electric chair and the learner was attached to electrodes, and another room for the teacher and researcher, with the electric shock generator.Learner had to learn a list of words, each time they got it wrong the voltage would go up 15 v. When teacher refused they were told to continue.
What did Milgram want to investigate?
whether people would obey an authority figure when given instructions to harm another human being.
What were the findings of Milgram’s study?
65% continued to 450 volts
and all participants made it over 300 volts
What was the strengths of Milgram’s study?
gave an insight into why Nazi’s were killing jews - because they were following instructions
agentic theory
situational factors - what situational factors affected obedience e.g uniform, status of location
easily replicable
What does the agentic theory suggest?
that people will obey an authority when they believe the authority will take responsibility for consequences of their actions.
What did Adorno say about obedience?
felt that personality factors rather than situational factors could explain obedience. Proposed authoritarian personality
What is a independent personality?
not influenced by other people
What are the variables affecting conformity?
group size, unanimity and task difficulty
What were the findings of Asch’s line study ?
33% conformed all the time, 75% did it only once
What is the study for dispositional obedience?
The authoritarian personality by Elms and Milgram
What was the procedure for the Authoritarian Personality study by Elms and Milgram?
Using participants who had previously taken part, they selected 20 ‘defiant’ participants, who were those who had refused to continue at some point. Each participant completed the MMPI scale and the California F scale to specifically measure their levels of authoritarianism. Participants were also asked a series of open-ended questions, about their relationship with parents during childhood and their attitude to the experimenter and the learner in the original study.
What were the findings for The Authoritarian Personality study by Elms and Milgram?
participants who scored higher on the F scale ( so had more authoritarian traits) were more likely to give bigger shocks in Milgram’s experiment
What are the consequences of The Authoritarian Personality study by Elms and Milgram?
correctional - hard to draw meaningful conclusions
What did Adorno et al create?
created a questionnaire called the California F scale to measure the the levels of authoritarian personality.
Why are people less likely to obey?
- not accepting that the person giving the order has legitimate authority
- questioning the motives of the person giving the order.
What are the 3 reasons why people obey?
Agentic state
Gradual commitment
Legitimate authority
What is agentic state?
the individual sees himself or herself as the agent carrying out the order
Why does gradual commitment mean people are more likely to conform?
having agreed to do something, it is difficult to then change your mind
Why does legitimate authority mean people are more likely to conform?
the person giving the order is seen to have the right to
do so.
What can make people more resistant to social influence?
social support personality characteristics (locus of control)
Why did social support affect resistance?
if more people were around who refused to obey resistance was more likely to increase
What is locus of control?
is a continuum with strong external locus of control at one end and strong internal locus of control at the other end
What is the study for locus of control?
Rotter
What did Rotter do?
created a questionnaire to measure locus of control
What did the questionnaire for Rotter’s study involve?
choosing between paired statements which concludes whether you have internal or external locus of control
What is internal locus of control?
someone who believes they are in control of what happens to them
What is external locus of control?
when someone believes what happens to them is luck or fate and they are not in control of their life; all due to external forces in their environment
What is minority influence?
e occurs when an individual or small group influences the attitudes and behaviour of a larger group
When is minority influence stronger?
if the minority are consistent
if minority are flexible
Who did research into minority influence consistency?
Moscovici
What did Moscovici do?
compared consistent minorities with inconsistent minorities
What was the method of Moscovici study?
- lab study
- used 192 women
- in groups of 6 participants judged the colour of 36 slides
- all slides were blue
- 2 of 6 were confederates
- in one condition confederates called all slides green (consistent)
- in another condition they called 24 slides green and 12 slides blue (inconsistent)
- control group also used which contained no confederates
What was the result of Moscovici study?
- in control group participants called the slides green 0.25% of the time
- in consistent condition 8.4% said green due to minority, 32% called slides green once
- in inconsistent condition said slides were green 1.25%
What was the conclusion of Moscovici study?
confederates were in minority but their views appear to have influenced real participants
What were the strengths of Moscovici study?
due to using control group - could see the minority influenced the group
What were the weaknesses of Moscovici study?
lacked ecological validity - artificial, and carried out by just women
Who did research into minority influence flexibility?
Nemeth et al
What did Nemeth do?
repeated Moscovici’s study
What was different about Nemeth’s study and Moscovici’s?
participants answered with all colours they saw rather than single colour e.g green-blue
What were the 2 variations of Nemeth’s study?
2 confederates :
- said all slides were green
- said the slides were green or green-blue at random
- said the brighter slides were green-blue and the duller slides were green
What does the social impact theory outline?
3 influential factors
What are the 3 influential factors?
- strength
- numbers
- immediacy
What is strength as one of the influential factors?
how powerful, knowledgeable, and consistent the group appear to be
What is numbers as one of the influential factors?
how many people are in the group
What is immediacy as one of the influential factors?
how close the source of influence is to you (physically or i terms of a relationship)
How can minorities become majorities?
through the snowball effect
What is the snowball effect?
if people start to agree with the minority view then the minority become more influential. This results in more people converting to the minority view
What are 2 examples of minorities causing social change?
Martin Luther King
gay rights movement
What is the example of normative influence?
Asch’s line study
What is the example of informational influence?
Jenness’ study
