Social Influence Flashcards
What is obedience?
Milgram study outline and evaluate
Carried out at Yale uni (prestigious)
Obedience is where somebody acts in a manner to fulfil an order from direct authority. Person has choice to comply with order or refuse.
Milgram’s shocks aim was to try and see if somebody would go against their conscience and obey authority.
Sample size was 40 males ages 20-50. Volunteer sample who were given $4.50 to participate.
P’s told they were in a study about learning. P’s told they were randomly assigned role of teacher and the confederate was assigned role of learner.
If confederate answered wrong participant would give them a shock. Level of shock would increase with every wrong wrong answer by 15v. Same tape recording each time to improve consistency. Experimenter (man in white lab encouraged them too carry on.) confederate said phrases like ‘I can’t stand the pain’ and experimenter ‘you must continue’
Found all p’s gave atleast 300v. At 315v confederate stopped responding. 65% of people gave upto full 450v
Shows ordinary people very obedient to authority even to point of killing somebody.
All p’s debriefed and given questionnaire and 84% of p’s said they were happy too have participated
Sample lacks pop val as only males and only ages 20-50 so hard to generalise to women and other ages. Women generally less aggressive and more maternal so may have had different results.
16% weren’t happy to have participated could have caused psychological damage
Lab settings lack ecological validity
Milgram’s findings replicated in other cultures
Right to withdraw sort of removed when he said you must continue
Hofling et al- bonus study linking to Milgram’s
Studied obedience in nurses in real life hospital setting
Nurses were tang by a DR Smith on the telephone and asked too give a drug too a patient.
Nurses should not take orders over phone and dosage was twice the normal amount. However still 21/22 nurses complied which therefore acts as supporting evidence to Milgram’s work showing obedience does occur in real life. Study has real life application showing people do obey authority in real life even if it may harm somebody.
All females- maybe males behaved differently in the era due to different societal role and less likely to obey
Why do people obey?
Explain the situational variable proximity
Outline location effect
Uniform effect on obedience
Situational variables eg. Uniform, proximity, location
Social psychological factors and dispositional factors
Baseline at Yale was 65%. Vs 40% same room, 30% teacher puts learners hand onto plate, 20.5% orders over phone. Pressure to obey therefore varies by proximity. Also when victims near you, you can see them and the consequences it has
65% Yale baseline (prestigious uni that’s respected). Prestigious setting gave more authority than at run down office which had 47.5%. That study therefore no longer linked to Yale so no longer have the status linking to the authority figure. Location controls amount of power. Different places different people have power.
Uniform symbolises somebody’s authority eg. The police. In this variation experimenter pulled away at last minute and member of the public in normal clothes brought in. Member of public doesn’t have as much authority as they don’t necessarily know what they’re doing. Experimenter posted by member of public had 20%
Bickman study explain
Evaluation for situational variables study
3 male confederates either dressed in normal clothes, milkman or security guard. Asked passers by too do task for them such as pick up litter or give them a coin for parking . P’s 2x as likely to obey security guard as they were the man in normal clothes. Supports idea that uniform therefore affects obedience.
Good control over variables with only one variable such as proximity manipulated at a time. There is a lack of internal validity as people may have guessed aim when experimenter replaces with member of public which would affect their results.
Do the findings of the study warrant evil behaviour and suggest it’s acceptable if we are obeying authority.
Social psychological factors what do they suggest?
What’s the agentic state?
Suggests other people can influence our behaviour and not just situational variables.
We aren’t responsible for actions in agentic state, we are just a puppet to authority figure. We feel powerless to disobey. We are acting as an agent to an authority figure. Agentic shift happens when we believe somebody else has higher social status. We go from being autonomous to an agent
Legitimate authority
Evaluation of legitimate authority
Certain people are obeyed in society due too having authority eg. Parents, teachers, police etc. We have trust in them and we believe that if we disobey them we may experience punishment. If we believe person giving orders is a legitimate authority figure we are more likely to obey them.
Doesn’t explain why some p’s didn’t obey eg.35% of ps’s didn’t give full 450v.
Legitimate authority is good explanation of cultural differences in obedience eg. Germany 85% gave full series of shocks whereas Australia only 16%. Perhaps therefore Germany respects society more and are more likely to obey.
Authoritarian personality what is it?
When and how does it form?
A personality type that makes you very susceptible too obeying authority figures. They show extreme respect for authority. Look down on those lower in social hierarchy. They believe that strong leaders are necessary.
Forms in childhood and perhaps due too harsh parenting involving strict discipline, criticism and impossibly high standards. Child then may feel resentment but can’t display it too parents so places these feelings on those whom are felt too be lower in society
Adorno et al study
Over 2000 middle class Americans did a survey studying attitudes towards religious and ethnic minority groups (on the F scale). Those who had authoritarian Personality looked down on weak and had negative preconceptions and had prejudices and stereotypes against others. Elms and Milgram studied obedient p’s abd found they scored higher on F scale and were less likely to be close to their father in childhood
Elms and Milgram only shows causation not correlation.
Supports idea of authoritarian Personality.
Large sample size so perhaps good val. however only middle class Americans studies so hard to generalise so lacks pop val and results may show culture bias. Limited explanation as can’t explain fully pre war Germany as surely not everybody had authoritarian Personality type yet majority of people obeyed. Links to determinism with that surely not being the case
3 Types of conformity ?
Compliance - change public behaviour but don’t change private behaviour or beliefs. Generally a short term change and occurs due too normative social influence eg. You say you like drill rappers in class too act cool but then privately you hate it.
Internalisation- deepest level of conformity where you change public and private beliefs and occurs as a result of informative social influence eg. Somebody is influenced by a group of Christians he then starts to believe in the faith and his beliefs are same publicly and privately.
Identification- changes public behaviour as associate with group group and value it even if they don’t agree with the groups beliefs privately. Is dependant on group presence and is in between compliance and internalisation
Normative and informative social influence as explanations of conformity
Normative social influence is when somebody conforms too fit in and seek approval from the social group or avoid disapproval from other group members. Will lead too conformity. Links to compliance and identification. They will follow the normal behaviours of society. Eg, own clothes day you wear what’s supposedly cool even if you don’t like it too avoid rejection. Normative social is an emotional rather than cognitive process and is most pronounced in stressful situations
Informative social influence is where we conform as we believe somebody else too have greater knowledge and be correct. This explanation leads to internalisation where we change our public and private beliefs on a topic. Can happen when they are uncertain themselves about a correct answer so look to the group for advice. More prominent in stressful situations or when somebody’s new so doesn’t know what to do in a situation and so doesn’t know what’s right
Asch’s line study outline and evaluate
123 American male p’s
The extent to which social pressure from a majority could affect somebody’s answer and cause them to conform
Naîve participant put in a room with 7 confederates who had pre planned answer to line task. Real participant believed all the rest were real. Answers were always obvious and you had to say which line was the same length as the line the man showed you (there was always 3 choices). 18 trials in total and confederates gave wrong answer in 12. 75% conformed atleast once and 1/3 went along with nearly all.
People confirmed as wanted too be part of the group- normative social influence. Could show demand characteristics with social desirability.
May receive different results now too then as carried out in the 50’s just after the war where America was more conformist than it is now so there may be historical bias.
What impact did Asch’s change of procedure have on his results? And what were the 3 things he changed.
Task difficulty, unanimity and changing the size of the group.
Greater task difficulty was introduced by using lines that were more similar in length. This meant the effect of informative social influence was increased where people would look to others for the answer as they believed they had greater knowledge. Effect of informative social influence was increased as with more similar length lines there is a greater chance of getting a wrong answer.
Unanimity- Asch found when a dissenter was introduced it reduced conformity as it provided social support to the person. Introduction of dissenter decreased conformity by 25%.
group size- It was found there is no need for a majority greater than 3 in order for conformity too occur. A majority of greater than 3 would not affect conformity levels.
Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment outline and evaluate including like: aim ,procedure etc
It’s a study showing conformity.
Was funded by US navy. It’s aim was too see if people would conform to new social roles.
-Volunteer sample of all male psychology students from prestigious Stanford uni. Random allocation of p’s into 2 groups of security guards or prisoners. Prisoners were meant to be locked in cells for 2 weeks of uni wing and guards meant too keep the prisoners under control and behaving. Arrested at home unexpectedly then: stripped, deloused etc and referred too as their number not their name and in prison cells 23 hours a day. Prison guards had uniforms, sticks and mirrored sunglasses.
Experiment called off after 6 days due too brutality eg. 2 prisoners had nervous breakdowns. Prisoners didn’t stand upto guards and did as they were told despite it being unpleasant. Shows that the p’s in the experiment conformed to the behaviors of their social roles.
Stanford prison experiment is partially limited due too it not being realistic enough as it was carried out in the prestigious university of Stanford which would have the same feel as an ordinary prison so p’s behavior may differ too if they were in a different location.
Study sample consists of all white males so experiences culture and gender bias therefore making it hard to generalize and it lacks population validity.
Volunteer sample means only certain outgoing kind of people are taking part in the study so it perhaps lacks population validity.
Study has had practical application as helped revolutionize the human rights of prisoners meaning they get better treatment. However this experiment is also limited due to effects on p’ causing psychological harm eg. such as 2 p’s experiencing nervous breakdown. Also maybe hard too generalize too other cultures as different places have different sorts of prisons eg. America still has death penalty.
Conformity definition
It’s where people adapt their behavior and attitudes to the behaviors and attitudes of significant others like teachers. It’s a response too indirect group pressure.
You tend to act the same way or similar too people in your reference group and it’s referred too as yielding too group pressure
What’s social support?
One way people may resist the pressure to conform or obey is if they have somebody who shares their perspective. Having somebody who shares their viewpoint can help build their confidence and stay independent. eg. Asch’s variation of his line study in the unanimity variable where the introduction of a dissenter decreased conformity by 25% due too the social support.
