4.1.1 - Social Influence Flashcards

Question

Who conducted the line study?

Answer 1

Asch (1951)

Answer 2

- Used lab experiment to study conformity using line judgement task - Naive participants individually in room with seven confederates - Each person had to state aloud which comparison line was most like the target line - THE ANSWER WAS ALWAYS OBVIOUS. - 18 trails for each ppt - Asch interested to see if real participant would conform to majority

Answer 3

- group size - unamity - task difficulty

Answer 4

- Asch found that conformity tends to increase as the size of the group increases - With one other confederate in group, conformity was 3% compared to 32% when there was three or more. - found little change in conformity once group reached 4-5 - 3 = optimal group size for conformity to occur Suggests most people are very sensitive to the views of others

Answer 5

- Asch introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates - a dissenter. - In one variation the dissenter gave the correct answer, and in another they gave a different wrong answer, leading to reduced conformity. - The rate decreased to less than a quarter of the level it was when the majority unanimous. - Non-conformity is more likely when cracks are perceived in the majority's unanimous view.

Answer 6

- Asch made the line-judging task more difficult to judge the effect on conformity rates - When the comparison lines were made more similar in length to stimulus line, it was harder to judge correct answer. - Asch found conformity increased - When we are uncertain as in ambiguous situations or in difficult tasks, it seems we look to others for confirmation - informational social influence.

Answer 7

- demand characteristics - androcentric - ethnocentric - can’t be generalised - artificial task - ethical issues - participants deceived - lacks temporal validity - as Perrin and Spencer (1981) carried out the study and only one student conformed

Answer 8

A social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. The greater number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help.

Answer 9

Phillip Zimbardo (1971)

Answer 10

How we conform to social roles (Whether guard brutality was due to the guards sadistic personalities or the situation)

Answer 11

- Mock prison in basement of psychology dept. at Stanford University - Advertised for students willing to volunteer and selected those 'emotionally stable' - Randomly allocated to role of guard or prisoner - Prisoners arrested at houses, stripped, searched and issues uniform + number - Guards had own uniform - mirrored sunglasses, night stick, whistle - Zimbardo assigned himself as the prison warden

Answer 12

- Guards took up roles with enthusiasm - Became a threat to prisoners' psychological/physical health and the study was stopped after after 6 days instead of intended 14 - Within 2 days, prisoners rebelled against guards - After prisoners' rebellion was put down, prisoners became subdued and depressed - One released on first day due to psychological disturbance - 2 released on 4th day - One went on hunger strike and was locked in dark closet Guards behaviour became more brutal and aggressive.

Answer 13

- controlled variables - increased internal validity

Answer 14

-lack of realism - ppts. were play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to roles -role of dispositional influences - minimised role of personality factors -lack of research support - BBC study found prisoners eventually took control of mock prison -ethical issues

Answer 15

- recruited 40 american males - were told it was a memory experiment - offered $4.50 - a rigged draw took place whether ppts would be learner or teacher - confederate always learned - could leave at any time - learner was strapped to a chair in another room and wired with electrodes - teacher asks learner question - electrocuted when incorrect or didn’t reply - increased with every wrong answer - 15-450 v - not real, learner faked pain

Answer 16

Gave them prods e.g. 1."Please continue" or "Please go on" 2."The experiment requires that you continue" 3."It is absolutely essential that you continue" 4."You have no other choice, you must go on"

Answer 17

- no ppts stopped before 300v - 12.5% stopped at 300v - 65% 450v - Some ppts had seizures, panic attacks - debriefed - sent a follow up questionnaire

Answer 18

- low internal validity - demand characteristics - supporting replication e.g. Hofling et al and Sheridan and King - ethical issues - social identity theory (alt explanations)

Answer 19

Key to obedience lies in group indentification

Answer 20

Yes Involved giving real shocks to puppies - 54% male ppts. and 100% of females delivered what they thought was a fatal shock

Answer 21

Field studies on nurses who were unaware they were in an experiment - support milgram’s research

Answer 22

-uniform - location -proximity

Answer 23

-research support -ecological validity ( Bickman - 1974 ) -lacks internal validity - as ppts may have guessed shocks weren't real - demand characteristics - control of variables and cross-culture replication ( Miranda et al 1981 - found obedience rate of 90% amongst spanish students )

Answer 24

-Deny personal responsibility as believe acting for someone else as we believe in it just doing our job or just following orders. -Act as the agent for someone in authority. -Experience high levels of anxiety (moral strain) when realise what they are doing is wrong, but feel powerless to disobey.

Answer 25

- Opposite of agentic state - To be independent or free - Behave according to your own principles and feel a sense of responsibility for your actions.

Answer 26

-shift from autonomous state to agentic state - happens when other person has greater power due to their position in social hierarchy

Answer 27

- stay in agentic state - ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour - reduces moral strain - victim blame and deny damage they have done

Answer 28

:) -research support - “i’m responsible” (the experimenter said) Milgram’s own research - people in agentic state :) - Blass and Schmitt (2001) :( - A limited explanation (doesn't explain why ppts. don’t obey sometimes) :( - Conflicting evidence - Mandel (1998) described one incident involving German Reserve Police Battalion 101 where men obeyed the orders to shoot civilians in a small town in Poland, despite the fact they did not have direct order to (they behaved autonomously).

Answer 29

-More likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us e.g. teachers. - The authority is justified (legitimate) by the individual's position of power within a social hierarchy.

Answer 30

- We hand over control of our behaviour to people we trust to exercise authority appropriately. - Some people are granted the power to punish others.

Answer 31

:) Cultural differences - countries differ in the degree to which people are traditionally obedient to authority → in some countries authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals which reflects the way different societies are structures. SUPPORT FROM CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH = INCREASED VALIDITY OF EXPLANATION :) Real life crime - can help explain how obedience can lead to real life crimes → Kelman and Hamilton (1989) argue the My Lai massacre can be explained by the power hierarchy of the US army. :( Cannot explain all (dis)obedience - cannot explain instances where the legitimacy of authority is clear and accepted e.g. Some of Milgram's ppts. disobeyed despite recognising the Experimenter's scientific authority.

Answer 32

→Why Nazi soldiers were so willing to persecute and kill members of minority groups. →Claimed particular personality type more likely to obey and that a high level of obedience is basically a personality disorder.

Answer 33

→2000 middle class, white americans →Studied their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups → Developed an 'f' scale to measure the relationship between personality type and prejudiced beliefs. F = Facist

Answer 34

-Those who scored highly on 'f' scale identified with strong people and were generally contemptuous of the weak. -They were very conscious of their own and others' status. High scorers had particular cognitive style: → no grey areas between categories of people → fixed and distinctive stereotypes → strong pos. correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice

Answer 35

Someone who believes in a totalitarian state rule by a supreme leader who controls everything

Answer 36

A distinct personality pattern characterised by strict adherence to conventional values and a belief in absolute obedience or submission to authority. (possible explanation for why some people require very little pressure in order to obey)

Answer 37

- rigid beliefs → traditional values and dislike change/disorder - hostility towards other groups → dominating and bullying manner - intolerant of ambiguity - submissive attitudes towards authority figures → respectful to authority figures

Answer 38

-very disciplined upbringing -unconscious hostility - displacement - prejudice

Answer 39

The ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or to obey authority

Answer 40

-presence of people who disobey or don't conform and can help others do the same - these people act as models to show that resistance to social influence is possible

Answer 41

:) Real world research support: - Allen and Levine (1971) - Found independence increased with one dissenter in an Asch-type study, even if the dissenter wore thick glasses and said he had problems with his vision. (Resistance is not motivated by following what someone says but it enables someone to be free from the pressure of the group). - Gamson et al (1982) - Higher resistance than Milgram because participants were in groups (obedience support)

Answer 42

Refers to the sense we have about what directs events in our lives

Answer 43

-INTERNALS are more likely to resist pressure to obey or conform as they believe they are mostly responsible and in control of their actions - more self confident, more achievement motivated, higher intelligence so have less need for social approval. -EXTERNALS are less likely to resist pressure to obey or conform as they believe that events in their life happen without their control

Answer 44

:( - Rotter et al (1982) - found that LOC is only important in new situations - has little influence in familiar situations :( - Twenge et al (2004) - people showed to be more external over time however people have become more resistant to obedience - if resistance were linked to LOC, surely people should be more internal. :) - Holland (1967) - Repeated Milgram's experiment - internals showed greater resistance as 37% did not continue to the highest shock level, supporting LOC explanation.

Answer 45

-commitment -consistency -flexibility

Answer 46

- Synchronic - all people in minority saying same thing - Diachronic - they have been saying the same thing for a long time

Answer 47

If views are repeated, it increases the interest of other people over time

Answer 48

- extreme activities that are at some risk - increases influence so increases interest from majority group members - the augmentation principle

Answer 49

That if minority influence is seen as being inflexible and uncompromising, then the majority are unlikely to change. Flexibility is key

Answer 50

more and more people adopt the minority opinion, until gradually the minority becomes the majority.

Answer 51

:) - Research support for consistency - Moscovici demonstrated that when the minority are consistent in their responses they can influence the majority → when minority gave inconsistent answers in Moscovici’s study, they were generally ignored by the majority. :) - Research support for depth of thought: - Martin et al →People were less willing to change opinions to the new conflicting view if they had listened to a minority group than if they had listened to a majority group → shows the minority message had been more deeply processed. :( - Artificial tasks - Studies make a clear distinctions between majority and minority influence but the tasks are artificial - means the findings lack external validity and therefore have limited real-world applications. :( - The effect of the minority may not be apparent - People may be reluctant to admit their ‘conversion’ publically. → Moscovici found higher agreement with the minority when ppts. wrote down their responses. This shows internalisation took place.

Answer 52

'Blue slide, green slide" study - control group with no confederates - ppts given eye tests to ensure they weren't colourblind - shown 36 slides that were CLEARLY shades of blue and asked to state colour out loud - in first part of experiment 2 confederates answered green for each slide - CONSISTENT - in second part of experiment answered green 24 times and blue 12 times - INCONSISTENT

Answer 53

- only 0.25% of control group responses were green → the rest were blue - for experimental group, 1.25% of ppts. answers were green when confederates gave inconsistent answers - this rose to 8.42% responding with green when the confederates were consistent - suggests minorities can influence majorities - later research largely confirmed these findings

Answer 54

How whole societies might change

Answer 55

When societies as a whole adopt new attitudes, beliefs and behaviour

Answer 56

→minority influences →conformity research →obedience research

Answer 57

When an individual is exposed to a persuasive argument under certain conditions, they may change their views to match those of the minority.

Answer 58

1. Drawing attention to the issue 2. Consistency of position 3. Deeper processing 4. The augmentation principle 5. The snowball effect 6. Social cryptomnesia

Answer 59

When minorites take risks to further the cause

Answer 60

When people gradually switch from a majority position to a minority one

Answer 61

People have no memory of the events that led to that change

Answer 62

when people who had simply accepted the status quo began to think of the unjustness

Answer 63

:) - Research support -Milgram follow up study found ppts who went up to 450 volts scored higher on tests of authoritarianism and lower on scales of social responsibility. :( - Methodological problems (interviews) - demand characteristics, all male, American, not all prejudiced people had harsh upbringing :( - Correlation does not equal causation :( - Alternative explanation → Social Identity Theory :( - Limited explanation- millions of individuals displayed obedient behaviour in pre-war Germany but cannot all have the same personality :( - Political bias - ignores left-wing authoritarianism

Answer 64

- Measured number of times each ppt conformed to the majority view - On average, the naive participant gave a wrong answer 32% of the time - 75% conformed on at least one trial - 5% of ppts conformed to all 12 wrong answers - in control group, with no pressure to conform by confederates, less than 1% of ppts gave the wrong answer

Answer 65

1. Dissenters make social change more likely. →Asch's research showed that when on confederate always gave the correct answer, this broke the power of majority - this enabled others to dissent as conformity reduced to 5.5%, demonstrating the potential for social change. →Social support breaks the unanimous position of the majority. 2. Majority influence and normative social influence. → Environmental and health campaigners exploit conformity by appealing to NSI. →They provide information about what others are doing and social change is encouraged by drawing attention to the majority's behaviour.

Answer 66

1. Disobedient models make social change more likely → Milgram's research showed the importance of disobedient role models as in his variation when one confederate refused to give shocks, the rate of obedience in genuine ppts. dropped significantly. → Obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when genuine ppt was joined by disobedient confederate. 2. Gradual commitment leads to 'drift; →Zimbardo (2007) suggested how obedience can be used to create social change - once a smaller commitment has been made it becomes more difficult to resist a bigger one. → People 'drift' into a new kind of behaviour → Sometimes referred to as the "Foot in the door technique"

Answer 67

:) - Research support → Nolan (2008) San Diego study showed how conforming to a majority group can lead to social change. :( - The nature of deeper processing has been questioned → minorities sometimes seen as 'deviant' in eyes of majority. :( - Identification is overlooked. :( - Methodological issues - explanations based on social influence limited in contributions to social change as tasks used in studes do not reflect real-life situations of social influence. :( - Minority influence is only indirectly effective → Nemeth (1986) suggests that the effects of minority influence may only be indirect and delayed.

4.1.1 - Social Influence Flashcards

Complete (92 cards)