social influence keywords

Question 1

agentic state

Answer 1

• an explanation of obedience offered by Milgram
• is where an individual carries out the orders of an authority figure, acting as their agent
• the shift from autonomy to ‘agency’ is reffered to as the ‘agentic shift’

Question 2

Asch

Answer 2

Solomon Asch was an American Social Psychologist who conducted a series of studies in the 1950s to examen the extent to where people would conform to the opinions of others in an unambiguous situation

Question 3

authoritarian personality

Answer 3

• first identified by Adorno et al(19)
• refers to a person who has extreme respect for authority and is more likely to be obedient to those who hold power over them

Question 4

commitment: social influence

Answer 4

• refers to the way that minority influence is more likely to occur if the minority shows dedication to their position
• typically involves some form of personal sacrifice, which shows the majority that one is not just acting out of self interest

Question 5

compliance

Answer 5

• lowest form of conformity
• a person changes their public behaviour but not their private beliefs
• usually a short term change and the result of normative social influence

Question 6

conformity

Answer 6

occurs when someone changes their behaviour or beliefs due to real or imagined pressure from others

Question 7

conformity to social roles

Answer 7

social roles are the parts individuals play when they belong to social group, and conformity to social roles occurs when people behave in certain ways because they feel that is expected of them in that role.

Question 8

consistency

Answer 8

• refers to the way in which minority influence is more likely to occur if the minority members share the same belief and retain it over time
• this then draws the attention of the majority to the minority

Question 9

dispositional explanations of obedience

Answer 9

focus on internal characteristics that lie within the individual (e.g. personality) that lead them to be more or less likely to follow the orders of an authority figure

Question 10

flexibility

Answer 10

• refers to the way in which minority influence is more likely to occur if the minority is willing to compromise
• this means they cannot be viewed as dogmatic and unreasonable

Question 11

group size

Answer 11

• Asch identified group size as a variable that influences conformity
• Asch found that as he increased the size of the majority, conformity levels icreased
• with two confederates, conformity occurred on 12.8% of trials, rising to 32% for trials with three confederates
• however, after that group size did not make a significant difference to the rate of conformity

Question 12

identification

Answer 12

• middle level of conformity
• a person changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs, but only while they are in the presence of the group they are identifying with
• usually a short term change and is often the result of normative social influence

Question 13

informational social influence

Answer 13

where a person conforms to gain knowledge, or because they believe that someone else is ‘right’.

Question 14

internalisation

Answer 14

• deepest level of conformity
• where a person changes both their public behaviour and their private beliefs
• usually a long term change and often a result of informational social influence

Question 15

legitimacy of authority

Answer 15

• explanation of obedience offered by Milgram
• he suggested that we are more likely to obey a person who has a higher position or status in a social hierarchy

Question 16

location

Answer 16

• Milgram found that location affected the levels of obedience in his research
• when he conducted a variation in a run-down office block he found that the percentage of participants that went to 450 volts on the electric shock generator fell from 65% (at the prestigious Yale University) to 47.5%

Question 17

locus of control

Answer 17

• Rotter (1966) proposed the idea of LoC
• it is the extent to which people believe they have control over their lives

Question 18

internal locus of control

Answer 18

• believe they have high levels of control over their lives
• tend to take personal responsibility for behaviour
• less likely to be influenced or rely on others
• resist pressure

Question 19

external locus of control

Answer 19

• believe that life is determined by external/ environmental factors i.e luck
• more likely to be influenced by others

Question 20

Milgram

Answer 20

Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist who conducted research into obedience

Question 21

minority influence

Answer 21

occurs when an individual or small group influences the attitudes and behaviour of a larger group

Question 22

normative social influence

Answer 22

• when a person conforms in order to be accepted and belong to a group
• they do it because it is socially rewarding and/or to avoid social rejection

Question 23

proximity

Answer 23

• situational variable affecting obedience
• refers to how close you are to someone or something
• in Milgram’s experiment proximity included:
• how close the teacher was to the learner
• how close the teacher was to the experimenter

-Milgram found when teacher and learner were in the same room, the percentage of P’s who gave the full 450v shock fell form 65% to 40%

• he also found that when the experimenter left the room and gave instruction over the telephone, obedience levels fell to 20.5%

Question 24

situational explanations of obedience

Answer 24

focus on external factors that affect the likelihood that someone will obey orders e.g proximity, location and uniform (Milgram’s research)

Question 25

social change

Answer 25

refers to ways in which a society develops over time to replace beliefs, attitudes and behaviour with new norms and expectations

Question 26

social influence

Question 27

social support

Answer 27

a way in which people can resist the pressure to conform as they have an ally, someone supporting their point of view (builds their confidence)

Question 28

task difficulty

Answer 28

• identified by Asch in his line study
• he found that when the line judgement task became more difficult conformity levels increased as P’s were more likely to believe confederates were right

Question 29

unanimity

Answer 29

• identified by Asch as a variable that affects conformity
• refers to the extent that members of a majority agree with one another

Question 30

uniform

Answer 30

• situational variable affecting obedience
• in Milgram’s research, percentage of P’s who were fully obedient fell from 65% to 20% when experienter wore his own clothes rather than the ‘uniform’ of a white lab coat

Question 31

Zimbardo

Answer 31

• Philip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment
• his aim was to examine if other people would conform to the social role of a prison guard or a prisoner when placed in a mock prison environment

Question 32

obedience

Answer 32

a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual, who is usually an authority figure

Question 33

confederate

Answer 33

individuals who seem to be participants but in reality are part of the research team

Question 34

gradual commitment

Answer 34

where people who initially obey small requests find it hard not to obey larger requests

Question 35

buffers

Answer 35

anything that reduce the immediacy and impact of the orders given, or reduce the depersonalisation of the victim

Question 36

snowball effect

Answer 36

• refers to a situation where something starts small and gains momentum, growing in significance or intensity
• converting more and more people to the minority belief in a shorter and shorter space of time

Question 37

independents behaviour

Answer 37

any individual or group who resists pressures to conform or obey

Question 38

social cryptoamnesia

Answer 38

a failure to remember the origin of a change, in which people know that a change has occurred in society, but forget how this change occurred

Question 39

autonomous state

Answer 39

where individuals are seen as personally responsible for their actions

Question 40

cognitive dissonance

Answer 40

unpleasant feeling of anxiety created when simultaneously holding two contradictory ideas

Question 41

dehumanisation

Answer 41

degrading people by lessening their human qualities

Question 42

deindividuation

Answer 42

when a person moves into a group and as a result loses some individual identity

Question 43

dispositional attribution

Answer 43

explanation of individual behaviour as a result caused by internal characteristics that reside within the individual

Question 44

individual variables

Answer 44

personal characteristics that affect the degree to which individuals yield to group pressures

Question 45

ironic deviance

Answer 45

takes place when we believe that the behaviour of the majority is the result of unreasonable pressure from authority

Question 46

morality

Answer 46

decisions and behaviour based upon the perception of proper conduct

Question 47

personality

Answer 47

combination of characteristics that forms an individual’s distinctive nature

Question 48

reactance

Answer 48

occurs when a person feels that someone or something is taking away his or her choices or limiting the range of alternatives

Question 49

situational variables

Answer 49

features of an environment that affect the degree to which individuals yield to group pressures

Question 50

social roles

Answer 50

the parts individuals play as part of a social group

Question 51

status

Answer 51

the position of an individual within a hierarchical group

Question 52

systematic processing

Answer 52

analysis based on critical thinking