Social Influence Flashcards
what is conformity?
a type of social influence where a person changes their behaviour or beliefs due to real or imagined pressure.
what are the three types of conformity?
compliance, identification and internalisation
what is compliance?
conforming to the majority (publicly) but not agreeing privately (internal beliefs) - weakest level of conformity, temporary.
what is identification?
where people change their behaviour and their private beliefs, but only in the presence of their identified group - middle level of conformity, temporary.
what is internalisation?
involves public and private conformity - deepest / strongest level of conformity, permanent.
what are the two explanations of conformity?
normative social influence (NSI) and informational social influence (ISI)
what is normative social influence?
conforming to be accepted: ‘wanting to fit in’ - known as compliance / identification, can be socially rewarding, usually short-term.
what is informational social influence?
conforming to be ‘right’ - leads to internalisation, involves adapting a new belief system, permanent and usually long-term.
when did asch conduct his study and what was it on?
conformity, 1951
what was asch’s aim?
to investigate group pressure - majority influence; to assess the extent people will conform.
what was asch’s baseline procedure?
123 american male participants, each tested in a group with other ‘fake’ participants (confederates) - in groups of 6 to 8, they were tested with 2 white cards: 1 containing 1 line that needed to match up with 1/3 lines on other card.
what did asch find in his baseline procedure?
- 36.8% of the time participants conformed
- 25% of participants never conformed (no wrong answers given)
- 75% of participants conformed at least once.
what did asch conclude with his baseline procedure?
that people conformed due to wanting to fit in and avoid rejection (NSI).
when did asch conduct variations of his baseline procedure and what were they?
1955, group size, task difficulty and unanimity.
what effect did group size have and what were the findings?
group size = adding more confederates from 1-15 which enabled the total group sizes to range from 2-16.
he found that:
- 1 confederate = lower conformity rate (3%)
- 2 confederates = lower conformity rate (12.8%)
- 3 confederates - conformity rate remained the same (36.8%)
- 15 confederates = lower conformity rate (29%).
asch concluded that an individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group.
what effect did unanimity have and what were the findings?
unanimity = adding a dissenter (a confederate that disagreed with other confederates)
he found that:
- when 1 of the dissenters gave the correct answer throughout, there was a lower conformity rate (5%)
- when 1 of the dissenters gave different incorrect answers to majority, there was also a lower conformity rate (9%).
asch concluded that an individual is more likely to conform when the group is unanimous (all give the same answer).
what effect did task difficulty have and what were the findings?
task difficulty = making the task more difficult - less ambiguous.
he found that when he made it more difficult (by making the difference between the line lengths significantly smaller) there was a higher conformity rate (due to ISI increased).
asch concluded that an individual is more likely to conform when the task is difficult.
what are the strengths of asch’s research?
there is research support, lucas et al found that when presented with difficult problems to solve, participants were more likely to conform to the majority answer (due to need for more info - ISI), this is a reliable study and supports asch with his claim of task difficulty being a variable that affects conformity.
-> (counterpoint): however, his study found that conformity is more complex than asch suggested, participants with high confidence conformed less on hard tasks than those with low confidence - lack of reliability.
there is high internal validity, there is strict control over extraneous variables e.g. timing of assessment and type of task used, participants did the experiment before (without confederates) to see if they knew correct answer, removing a confounding variable (lack of knowledge) and the strict control means that replication of experiment is easy which suggests that valid and reliable conclusions can be made.
what are the weaknesses of asch’s research?
there is limited application as only men were tested (123 and american) so there is no account for gender or cultural differences, this means there is a lack of generalisability as it doesn’t represent the conformity in women and people from other cultures; it is also subject to gender bias.
there are ethical issues, the participants were deceived as they were tricked into thinking that the study was about perception rather than compliance and they thought the confederated were genuine participants, deception was used to prevent demand characteristics so ethical cost should be weighed against benefits of study.
the study uses an artificial task / situation as it is based on peoples’ perceptions of lines so findings cannot be generalised to real life situations - does not reflect complexity of real life conformity as in the ‘real world’ there would be more diversity, so there is a lack of validity and generalisability.
what are social roles?
the parts that people play as members of various social groups, they come with expectations about how people should act or behave in each role.
what is the dispositional explanation?
known as the personality factor - belief of someone being evil due to their personality.
what is the situational explanation?
known as the environmental factor - the idea that people are evil because of the situation they are placed in - follow norms or social roles in given environment.
what is a sadistic personality?
it is gaining pleasure out of seeing someone in pain, can be physical or mental (dispositional explanation).
when did zimbardo conduct his study and what was it on?
conforming to social roles, 1973.
what was zimbardo’s aim?
to figure out how readily people would conform to the social roles in a stimulated environment and what happens to ‘good’ people when put in bad situations (situational).
what was zimbardo’s procedure?
- mock prison was set up in the basement of stanford university.
- 21 american male participants (paid to take part).
- participants were arrested by local PD, stripped and thrown in prison.
- participants randomly assigned their social roles and encouraged to follow.
- 2 conditions: uniform and instructions about behaviour.
what was significant about the uniform condition?
it created a loss of identity (de-individuation) and both guards and prisoners were required to wear a uniform.
guards - given uniform, reflective shades (to not make eye contact), hadcuffs (reinforcement)
prisoners - given uniform, identified by number (more likely to conform to social role)
what was significant about the instructions about behaviour condition?
guards were instructed to run prison without any physical violence but encouraged by being reminded of their power.
prisoners were encouraged to identify with their social roles by several procedures.
what did zimbardo find in his procedure?
- both the prisoners and guards quickly conformed - guards became increasingly brutal and aggressive.
- the prisoners rebelled after 2 days which the guards quickly ended by becoming abusive towards the prisoners; mainly dehumanising them (highlighting their powerlessness).
- prisoners became submissive, but some were released early due to responses to torment (crying, hunger strike)
- study lasted 6 days and cancelled due to inhumane conditions.
what did zimbardo conclude with his procedure?
social roles have a strong influence on individuals’ behaviour - people quickly conformed, even if the roles go against their moral principles, each volunteer found themselves behaving as if they were in a prison rather than a study and situational factors were largely responsible for behaviours as none of the participants had displayed any personalities before the study.
what are the strengths of zimbardo’s research?
there is high internal validity as zimbardo had control over key variables: emotionally stable participants (able to rule out individual personality differences), controlled prison environment (objective).
due to the inhumane conditions and the treatment of the participants, ethical guidelines were put in place to stop future issues in psychology.
what are the weaknesses of zimbardo’s research?
there are ethical issues, participants were deceived as they were unexpectedly arrested and there was too much brutality.
there is a lack of generalisability, the small sample used (21 american males) means that the findings are not representative of women or different cultures.
the power of social roles were exaggerated as 1/3 of guards were brutal, 1/3 of guards placed fair rules and 1/3 of guards helped prisoners meaning that most guards were able to resist situational pressures to be brutal, this suggests that zimbardo overstated that participants were conforming to social roles and minimised influence of dispositional factors.
what is obedience?
it is a form of social influence where people are complying with the demands of an authority figure.
who conducted a study on obedience and when?
milgram, 1963
what was milgram’s aim in his baseline procedure?
his aim was to observe whether people would obey a figure of authority when told to harm another person - evaluating the influence of a destructive authority figure.
what was milgram’s procedure?
- 40 american male participants (20-50 year olds).
- set in the basement of yale university.
- teacher (T) = participant, learner (L) = confederate and experimenter (E)
- if T refused to shock the L, E gave prods to T: 1 - ‘please continue’, 2 - ‘it is required that you continue’, 3 - ‘it is essential to continue’ and 4 - ‘you have no choice, continue’.
- L was questioned, if the answer is incorrect, T would have to shock them (each shock increased in voltage - 15 to 450 volts).
what did milgram find in his baseline study?
- each participant delivered shocks up to 300 volts.
- 65% continued to 450 volts.
- 12.5% stopped at 300 volts.
what did milgram conclude in his baseline study?
- german people are not ‘different’; american participants willing to obey orders even if it causes harm to another person.
- the vast majority of participants were prepared to give lethal shocks to another person (confederate).
