Year 1 Chapter 1 social influences

Question 1

Compliance is a type of conformity. what do psychologists mean by compliance?

Answer 1

• A superficial and temporary form of conformity where we publicly agree but privately disagree
  
  • Only lasts as long as the group is around

Question 2

What is meant by identification?

Answer 2

• A moderate type of conformity where we act in the same way as the group because we value and want to be apart of it
  
  • We don’t necessarily agree with everything it stands for

Question 3

Outline 2 differences between internalization and compliance

Answer 3

• Compliance - public acceptance and private rejection

- Internalization - public and private acceptance

Question 4

Explain what is meant by normative and informational social influences

Answer 4

• Both explanations for conformity
  
  • NSI - conformity in order to be liked / fit in -> usually leads to compliance
  • ISI - conforming in order to be right - conformity occurs when situation is novel, the correct course of action is unclear or an expert is present -> most likely leads to internalization

Question 5

Describe the study done by Lucas et al in 2006

Answer 5

• Used mathematical problems to provide support for informational social influence
  
  • Participants had to give answer to easy and difficult maths questions
  • Increased conformity for difficult questions - especially for people who rated their own ability as poor
  • Shows that people conform when they do not know the answer. We look to others and assume they’re right - predicted by ISI

Question 6

Research often assumes that either NSI or ISI is responsible for conforming. However, it has been claimed that both may always play a role. Explain this

Answer 6

• Assumption is that behaviour is due to either NSI or ISI but it could be both
  
  • In Asch’s research conformity dropped when another dissenter was introduced -> reduction in NSI (social support) or in ISI (more information)
  • The respective roles of ISI and NSI are difficult to dis-tangle, which cast doubt on whether they are separate processes

Question 7

What support for NSI was provided by Asch’s study

Answer 7

• Participants went along with a wrong answer because the other people did
  
  • When asked why they said it was because they feared disapproval by others
  • PPTs conformed in order to be accepted and gain social approval

Question 8

What has research shown about the role of individual differences in conformity?

Answer 8

• Some people feel more need to be liked than others - going to be more affected by NSI
  
  • nAffilators have a greater need for affiliation - relationships with others
  • McGhee and Teevan nAffilators conform more
  • Conformity does not apply universally

Question 9

In relation to Asch’s research, explain what’s meant by the terms unanimity and task difficulty

Answer 9

• Unanimity; the extent to which all members of a group agree
• Asch; The majority was unanimous when all confederates chose the same comparison answer - produced the greatest level of conformity
  
  • Task difficulty; Asch’s study becomes more difficult when it becomes harder to work out the correct answer
  • Asch; conformity increases with task difficulty, as PPTs assume the majority is right

Question 10

Describe Asch’s study of conformity. Include details of what he found in your answer

Answer 10

• Showed participants two white cards - one had three lines of different length and had one standard line
  
  • Participants had to match two lines of the same length
  • Each participant was tested with a group of confederates, who after the first few trials started given the wrong answer. All confederates gave the same wrong answer
  • Overall, the participants gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time
  • Every participant conformed at least once, meaning that 75% conformed once
  • When asked why they conformed, they said “avoid rejection” (NSI)

Question 11

State two limitations of Asch’s study

Answer 11

• A child of it’s time
  - Perrin and Spencer repeated the study in 1980 in the UK
  - only one student out of 396 conformed
  - The 1950’s were a very conformist time in America - made sense to conform to establish norms
  - This means that people may have conformed because it was the normal thing to do (we now live in a less conformist age)
  
  • Artificial task and situation
    
    • Participant knew they were part of a study and may have just gone along with the study
    • The task was fairly trivial barely resembling real life - conforming had no negative consequences
      
      • The tasks cannot be generalized

Question 12

Explain the ethical issues with Asch’s study

Answer 12

• Deception - they thought the other people were part of the study
  
  • Benefits outweighs the cost - Gives us information about conformity in society and shows us the possibility of conforming and how these can be combated
  • These ethical issue were fairly trivial (mild embarrassment) and was dealt with by a de-brief

Question 13

Explain why Asch’s finding have limited application int eh real world

Answer 13

• Only men were tested
  
  • research suggests that women may be more conformist because they’re more concerned with social relations
  • All participants were from the USA - an individualist culture
  • In individualist cultures people are a lot more concerned with themselves
  • In collectivist cultures conformity rates were a lot higher -> such cultures are more concerned with group needs
  • Conformity rates could be much higher than Asch suggested
  • His results only apply to western men as they do not take gender or culture into account

Question 14

Explain what is meant by social role. Use an example in your answer

Answer 14

• The parts people play as members of society. E.g. teachers, teenagers, student, ect.
  
  • This is accompanied by the expectations people have of these roles “should” be have

Question 15

Outline the procedure, finding and conclusion from the Stanford prison experiment

Answer 15

• Mock prison created and PPTs randomly assigned to either prisoner of guard
  
  • Prisoner PPTs arrested at home, strip searched and blindfolded
  • Roles clearly divided - prisoners had sixteen rules to follow, which were enforced by the guards, who were all dressed in uniform and wore tinted glasses. Guards had total control
  • Guards took to their role quickly - consisting of harassment and abuse
  • Prisoners rebelled, was shut down quickly be the guards
  • Prisoners became subdued and depressed
  • Experiment had to be stopped after six days instead of the planned fourteen

Question 16

One strength of the SPE is the level of control. Outline what is meant by this and why it’s a strength

Answer 16

• All the PPTs were psychologically tested and randomly assigned
  
  • This meant that individual differences could be minimalism and the behavior displayed would be down to the role and not down to personality
  • Increases the internal validity as it means it’s easy to draw conclusions about the cause of behavior

Question 17

Critics have argued that Zimbardo exaggerated the role of the situation - explain this

Answer 17

• The role of the situation could have been exaggerated and the role of personality could have been minimized
  
  • Not all the guards behave the same - some were brutal but some were fair and some were kind
  • Social role may have not caused behavior as guards still saw the difference between right and wrong

Question 18

Why has it been argued that the SPE lacks realism?

Answer 18

• Banuazii and Mohavedi
  
  • The performance of the PPTs during the study were based on stereo-types of people are “supposed” to behave
  • E.g. one guard based his character on ‘cool had ‘Luke’
  • Means that the results may have not been down to social roles
    
    • However Zimbardo claimed quantitative data gathered during the study indicated that prisoners thought the prison was real - just run by psychologists
    • It seems on balance that the situation was real to the participants which contrasts the claims made by

Question 19

Outline one ethical issue with Zimbardo’s research

Answer 19

• When PPTs asked to leave the study Zimbardo responded more like a prison warden rather than a researcher
  
  • Protection from harm was the biggest issue - allow prisoners were allowed to leave it was much later than it should’ve been
  • Zimbardo should’ve remained detached

Question 20

Outline the study done by Haslam and Reicher and explain why this challenges Zimbardo’s conclusions about social conformity roles

Answer 20

• Replicated the SPE but in Britain
  
  • Findings were different - Prisoners formed a collective identity and took over the prison - attributed to social identity theory - the guards didn’t manage to achieve this
  • In the SPE Zimbardo argued that the people conformed to their role quickly and easily and the behavior of the PPTs stemmed from these roles
  • However, we can see from the BBC prison experiment that the social roles are not taken on easily or naturally - which is also seen in the SPE where the guards were actually helping the prisoners

Question 21

Outline Milgram’s research into social influences

Answer 21

• Participant were ‘randomly’ assigned to be learners or teachers, all the learners were confederates
  
  • The learners were put into a separate room from the teachers and asked questions
  • The teachers had to shock the learners when they got the answer wrong, with the voltage increasing with each wrong answer
  • The actor(learner) began showing great distress at the higher voltages, e.g screaming, shouting and banging on the wall
  • The experimenter that was in the room with the teacher would give prods to the teacher to continue shocking when they refused to continue
  • No participants stopped before 300v and 65% went all the way to the top of the shock scale, 450v (a leathal amount)
  • Many showed signs of stress, most objected but continued anyway
  • Prior survey said 3% would obey

Question 22

Evaluate Milgram’s research in terms of validity

Answer 22

• Low validity - Orne & Holland
  - Participant could guess the aim of the study
  - Demand characteristics - not studying what they wanted to
  
  • High external validity - Hofling et al
    
    • Nurses administered drug via orders over the phone, not supposed to do this
    • Milgram’s finding apply to other situations

Question 23

What is social identity theory and why does it suggest people obey?

Answer 23

• All about group identification
  
  • In the teachers identified with the science and so obeyed
  • Obedience dropped because the PPTs started to identify with the victim

Question 24

Why is SIT a limitation to Milgram’s conclusion about obedience?

Answer 24

• Milgram claimed PPTs obeyed because of the presence of an authority figure
  
  • SIT suggests obedience occurred because the teacher identified with the researcher or victim, contradicting Milgram

Question 25

Outline the ethical issues with Milgram’s research

Answer 25

• Deception
  - They didn’t know the teacher-learner selection was rigged
  - Didn’t know the shocks were fake
  
  • Prevents participants from giving fully informed consent
    
    • Prior consent becomes worthless because the study they’re taking part in isn’t the one they consented too
    • Possible psychological harm

Question 26

Briefly outline what’s meant by situational variables

Answer 26

• Factors that affect someones level of obedience

- Factors are all due to external circumstances

Question 27

Outline the three situational variables Milgram tested ad the effect they had on obedience

Answer 27

• Base line obedience at 65%
  
  • Proximity - the closeness of the participant and the researcher affected obedience
    
    • When the experiment was in a different room obedience fell to 40%
  • Location - Where the experiment is conducted
    
    • When in a run down office building obedience fell t 47.5%
  • Uniform - What the experimenter is wearing
    
    • When the experimenter was wearing civilian clothing obedience fell to 20%
    • Uniform produced the largest drop in obedience

Question 28

Outline one strength of Milgram’s variable

Answer 28

• Research support
  - Research conducted in other areas showed similar result proving that situational variables apply universally
  - Another study was conducted where a researcher, wearing either civilian clothing or that of an authority figure, told strangers there was a fire and he needed help. Participants were more likely to help if the researcher was wearing authority clothing
  
  • Show findings apply outside of the lab

Question 29

Outline one limitation of Milgram’s variations

Answer 29

• Lack of internal validity
  
  • PPTs may have worked out it was staged and acted how they thought the investigator would’ve wanted them to act
  • Demand characteristics
  • Would’ve meant that the results weren’t showing authentic behavior, but behavior that was put on

Question 30

Briefly explain what happened when these variations are applied across culture

Answer 30

• Similar results were shown across cultures
  
  • It was found that Spanish students had obedience 90% similar to Milgram’s results
  • This shows Milgram’s findings aren’t limited to male Americans
  • Smith and Bond said that the variations were only applied to western style cultures and thus so the results can’t be applied universally

Question 31

Why is a high level of control a strength of Milgram’s variations?

Answer 31

• He focused on one variation at a time
  
  • Isolated each variable so he was able to get true results for each variable
  • Made the study reliable and replicable

Question 32

Milgram’s findings support the influence of situational explanations of behavior. This has been criticised by Mandel, how claims that this simply offers an excuse for evil deeds. Taking the holocaust into account, why could this been seen as offensive? Why do individual differences need to be considered?

Answer 32

• It could be argued that Nazi soldiers can’t be held responsible for their actions in the holocaust because they were simply following orders
  
  • The situational variables they were exposed to
    
    • Proximity - orders given face to face
    • Uniforms - the soldier uniforms
    • Location - battle fields/war camps
  • Suggests the soldier were also victims
  • Individual differences would have an affect on behavior - this explanation suggests that all people would act the same way when in the same situations

Question 33

Outline the agentic state as an explanation for obedience. Refer to the autonomous state and binding factors in your answer.

Answer 33

• Milgram found that people involved in atrocities do not take blame for them
  
  • Feel like they’re acting for someone else - agent for someone else’s will
  • Opposite to agentic state is the autonomous state - free to behave according to their own principles
  • Agentic shift occurs when someone perceives someone else as an authority figure because of their position in the social hierarchy
  • Binding factors explain why people remain in the agentic state despite wanting to leave
  • These are aspects of situations that allow people to shift the damaging effects of their actions e.g. shifting blame to victim

Question 34

Outline some research support for agentic state

Answer 34

• Blass and Schmidt (2001) showed a clip of Milgram’s study to PPTs
  
  • PPTs stated that the harm done to the learner was the experimenters fault and the responsibility was due to the legitimate authority - in this situation the researcher is at the top of the social hierarchy
  • Legitimacy of authority is give as a reason, supporting this explanation

Question 35

Explain why the agentic state is a limited explanation for obedience

Answer 35

• Doesn’t explain why some research findings showing that people do not obey - all humans are all involved in social hierarchies and so all should obey
  
  • The agentic shift also does not explain findings in Hofling’s study where nurses did not show any levels of anxiety despite being aware of their role of destruction
  • This suggests that the agentic state can only explain some cases of obedience but not all of them

Question 36

Mandel (1998) described one incident in the second world war where a battalion of soldiers obeyed orders to shoot civilians in a small town in Poland despite being given the choice not to.
Explain how the behavior of the soldiers challenges the idea of agentic state

Answer 36

• Soldiers murdered with having been directly ordered to do so
  
  • There was no agentic shift, as they didn’t see themselves as acting on someone else’s behalf
  • They were acting of their own accord, out of hatred and prejudice
  • This is a different explanation, compared to the single minded explanation given by Milgram in which obedience is due to the agentic shift

Question 37

Outline how cross cultural research has supports the idea of the legitimacy of authority

Answer 37

• The explanation gives us an account of cross cultural differences in obedience
  
  • Kilham and Mann found in australia only 16% went to 450v whereas in germany Mantell found ab 86% obedience
  • Shows how in some cultures people are more likely to view someone as a legitimate authority
  • This reflects the different ways in which societies are structured and how children are raised to accept authority –> supportive cross cultural findings increase ecological validity of the explanation

Question 38

Briefly outline the basic idea behind dispositional factors of obedience

Answer 38

• High level of obedience is a psychological disorder

- Caused by an individual’s personality

Question 39

Outline the key study into dispositional factors

Answer 39

• Adorno et al (1950) - causes of the obedient personality
  
  • 2000 middle class white american
  • studied unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
  • Used the F-scale to measure the authoritarian personality
  • High cores on the F-scale identify with strong people and were contemptuous of the weak
  • Conscious of their own status, showing excessive respect to those of higher status
  • Very black and white with high levels of prejudiced and stereotypes

Question 40

Outline 2 conclusions of Adorno’s study

Answer 40

• People with authoritarian personalities are/have;
  - Very obedient to authority
  - Extreme respect for those of higher authority
  - Are contemptuous of people with an inferior status
  - Have very conventional views
  - Are inflexible
  - Believe we need to be strong and powerful

Question 41

What was suggested by Adorno about the origin of the authoritarian personality?

Answer 41

• Harsh parenting; strict discipline, high standards, loyalty, criticism and conditional love
  
  • Creates resentment and hostility which cannot be expressed and so is displaced

Question 42

Outline the research support for the authoritarian personality provided by Elms (1966)

Answer 42

• Elms and Milgram conducted interviews with people who scored highly on the F-scale, believing there may be a link to obedience
  
  • Links are however only correlational so they give causality
  • There could be other factors involved e.g. low level of education (Hyman and Sheatsley (19554))

Question 43

Outline some methodological problems with the research conducted into dispositional explanations

Answer 43

• Greenstein (1969) stated that the F-scale has methodological errors because all the questions are worded in the same direction
  
  • This means that people could get high scores just by giving the same answer to every question
  • Suffers from acquiescence and interviewer biases
  • Authoritarian personality has no bases in fact because of the flawed methodology behind the research

Question 44

Explain why the authoritarian personality is considered a limited explanation

Answer 44

• It’s hard to use it to explain obedience in the majority of a country’s population
  
  • Pre-war Germany - lot’s of racists, hostile and anti-semitic people - it’s unlikely all these people had authoritarian personalities
  • There are more realistic explanations (SLT)
  • The population identified with the anti-semitic state and thus behaved accordingly

Question 45

Why has it been argued that explanations using the authoritarian personality are politically based?

Answer 45

• The F-scale measures tendencies towards extreme right wing ideologies
  
  • Left wing ideologies have a lot in common with right wing
  • It is not applicable across the entire political spectrum

Question 46

Name two causes for resistance of social influence

Answer 46

• Social support

- Lotus of control

Question 47

Outline the role of social support in conformity and obedience

Answer 47

• Reduces both conformity and obedience
  
  • In Asch’s study conformity dropped to 25% when a dissenter was introduced
  • In Milgram’s research obedience dropped to 10% when a dissenter was introduced

Question 48

Outline what’s meant by the locus of control and how it relates to resisting social influences

Answer 48

• It measures what people believe controls their behavior
  
  • internal - they are in control of their behavior and are therefore responsible for it
  • External - Outside forces are in control of there behavior so they’re not in control of it
  • People with an internal locus of control are more likely to resist
  • This is because they view themselves as responsible for their actions

Question 49

OUtline supporting evidence for social support for both conformity and obedience

Answer 49

• Obedience
  - Gamson et al (1982)
  - PPTs were in groups - they chad higher levels of resistance than in Milgram’s study - 88% rebelled
  - Shows that there is a link between support and resistance
  
  • Conformity
    
    • Allen and Levine
    • Conformity decreased in Asch’s study when a dissenter was introduced
    • Even when the dissenter was unfit to make accurate judgements
    • Shows that it’s not the presence of another answer that causes resistance but that the dissenter allows us to be free of pressure

Question 50

Outline the support for the locus of control

Answer 50

• Holland (1967)
  
  • Repeated Milgram’s study but measured if the PPTs were internal or externals
  • 37% of internal didn’t continue to 450v and 23%v of externals didn’t
  • Shows that the internals are more likely to resist

Question 51

Rotter (1982) pointed out the role of the Loc may have been exaggerated. Outline hsi claims and why they present a problem

Answer 51

• LoC only come into play in novel situations
  
  • Past experiences may play a bigger role
  • People who conformed or obeyed in specific situations are more likely to do so again
  • LoC can only explain certain situations - not as important as first thought