social influence Flashcards
(25 cards)
types of conformity - ao1
conformity is a form of social influence that results from exposure to the majority position and leads to compliance with that position
kelman (1958) argued that three types of conformity can be distinguished:
compliance - when individuals adjust their PUBLIC behaviour, views, attitudes, beliefs so that they are in line with the majority. there is no change to privately held views/attitudes/beliefs and conformity only lasts while group is present, therefore superficial and temporary form
internalisation - when individuals adjust their behaviours/views/attitudes publicly and privately so that their align with the majority. the individual will examine their beliefs/views/attitudes based on what others say and decide the majority is correct, deep rooted permanent form of conformity
identification - moderate form of conformity where we conform to the opinions of the group on the basis that we value something about the group and want to be a part of it/more like the members in it. may be because we feel similar to the group, or we admire/look up to the group, may agree publicly but disagree privately
explanations for conformity - ao1
Deutsch and Gerard (1955) developed a two step process theory and thus identified two reasons for conformity : NSI and ISI
NSI - Normative Social Influence
based on the desire to be liked, as people we have a fundamental need to be liked and accepted by others, therefore we avoid any behaviour that will make others reject or ridicule us, leading us to copy the behaviour of others in order to “fit in”, nsi is likely to occur in situations with strangers where you may be more concerned about rejection, may be more pronounced in stressful situations where there is a greater need for social support, likely to lead to compliance
ISI - Informational Social Influence
based on the desire to be right, when one is uncertain about what behaviours or beliefs are correct or incorrect we are likely to look to others for information and accept the majority answer as correct, often occurs in ambiguous situations or when the situation is more difficult/complex, likely to lead to internalisation
explanations for conformity - ao3
+ NSI: Asch’s study found hat many of his participants went along with a clearly wrong answer just because other people did, this was due to the fear of rejection. could not have been due to isi as questions were not difficult or ambiguous.
+ ISI: Lucas et al (2006) used students to give answers to mathematical problems some easy some difficult, found that conformity occurred more when the mathematical problems were more difficult therefore evidencing conformity is likely to occur in difficult situations and those who are poor at maths looked to others to be right.
- rather than viewing nsi and isi as two mutually exclusive explanations for conformity we should be looking at how they may be complementary and both have a role in causing people to conform. For example a dissenting confederate can offer social support thus reducing the effect of nsi, but can also offer an alternative source of information which reduces the effect of ISI.
variables affecting conformity - ao1
Asch devised a conformity experiment which investigated the extent to which social pressure from a majority group would affect a person to conform. He used a lab experiment with 123 male us undergraduates in groups of 6 containing 1 true participant and 5 confederates. the groups were presented with 4 lines, 3 comparison and 1 standard and were asked which of the comparison matched the standard, true pp answered as one of the last, 12/18 trials confederates gave incorrect answers
36.8% conformed
25% never conformed
75% conformed at least once
in control trial only 1% of answers were incorrect
asch then investigated variables that may have an effect on conformity
group size - 1/2 confederates meant little conformity, 3 confederates 30% conformity, any more didn’t have an increasing effect,
unanimity in majority - an individual is more likely to conform when the group is unanimous, when joined by another participant, conformity rates fell from 32 to 5.5% if they gave the correct answer, if wrong answer fell to 9%
task difficulty - individual is more likely to conform when the task is difficult, lines were made more similar in length, became harder to judge therefore conformity increased
variables affecting conformity - ao3
+ high internal validity, strict control over extraneous variables, timing of assessment, task used, valid and reliable results and cause and effect relationships can be established
- artificial situation and task, based on a useless task that we would not do in everyday life therefore lacks ecological validity and the findings can be generalised to real life and does not represent the complexity of real life conformity
- ethical issues, deception was used, participants tricked into thinking the study was about perception rather than compliance so they could not give informed consent, the embarrassment after realising the true aims of the study may have caused psychological harm
- lacks population validity, sample was not representative, only included American male undergraduates therefore study subject to gender and culture bias
conformity to social roles - ao1
conformity to social roles is simply conforming to the expectations of that particular role and behaving in a way that is expected of that role
aim was to see whether people will confirm to new social roles, in other words to investigate how readily people would conform to the role of prisoner and guard in a stimulated environment of prison life
study was conducted in the basement of the Stanford university psychology building which was converted into a stimulated prison, used 24 American student volunteers were paid to take part (selected from over 70 applicatons after diagnostic interviews and personality tests ), they were randomly issued one of two roles, prisoner or guard, both had to wear uniforms but the prisoners were only referred to as their assigned number, prisoners were arrested at their homes, fingerprinted, photographed, stripped and searched. Three guards worked shifts of 8 hours and were instructed to do whatever they thought necessary to maintain law and order barring physical violence
zimbardo observed behaviours and acted as prison warden
identification occurred very fast and both adopted roles and played part in a short space of time, guards began to harass and torment in harsh and agressive ways (enjoying it) guards dehumanised prisoners and prisoners became increasingly submissive. 5 prisoners were released early due to adverse reactions to the physical and mental torment (screaming, crying, emotional disorder, depression)
experiment itself was terminated on day 6 when a fellow postgraduate student questioned the morality of the experiment and convinced zimbardo the conditions were inhumane.
conformity to social roles - ao3
+ real life applications, research changed the way us prisons operate, young prisoners are no longer kept with adult prisoners, beehive style prisoners are kept under constant surveillance to reduce the chance of institutionalisation
+ though there were massive ethical concerns after the study all participants were fully debriefed about aims and results as the study included deception and no informed consent, the study also led to the formal recognition of ethical guidelines to ensure the safety of participants in future studies
- lacks population validity, only includes American male students so is subject to gender and culture bias, collectivist cultures may be shown to be more conformist
- ethical issues, lack of fully informed consent due to deception required to avoid demand characteristics, however the breach could have been justified by the fact zimbardo himself did not know the events of the study and so could not inform participants, participants were not protected from psychological harm, stress, anxiety, emotional distress, prisoners had to be released early due to unstable mental state, study would have been deemed unnacceptable with modern ethical standards.
obedience research - ao1
obedience is a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order, the person issuing the order is likely a figure of authority with the power to punish when disobeyed.
milgram studied obedience in 1963 with the aim of finding out why the German soldiers followed hitlers orders to kill the jews by investigating the level of obedience participants would show when an authority figure tells them to administer electric shocks
study was investigating whether one would obey an authority figure when told to harm another person, study took place at Yale university and randomly selected 40 male volunteers who were paid for the study, participant given role of teacher and confederate role of learner (mr Wallace) determined via a fixed random allocation, participant belived learner had electrodes strapped to them and had to ask the confederate a series of questions, if the answer was wrong they had to deliver an electric shock which incremented by 15 volts ranging from 15-450 with 330 labelled as lethal, participants believed shocks were real but were not and were assessed on how many volts they would be willing to shock with, if participant asked advice from experimenter with some form of refusal the same standardised prods would be used, please continue, the experiment requires that you continue, it is absolutely essential that you continue, you have no other choice, you must go on.
found that all participants went up to 300V and 65% went to 450V, only 12.5% stopped at 300V, vast majority were prepared to give lethal electric shocks
obedience research - ao3
- criticism comes from the study having low external validity, low mundane realism therefore cannot be generalised to every day life.
- presents ethical issues with deception, participants are misled into thinking electric shocks were real, could have caused psychological harm
+ research evidence from Hofling, 22 nurses were asked by a confederate doctor to give 20mg of a made up drug astrofen to Mr Jones (patient) and that he would sign drug authorisation later, label on box clearly stated max dose was 10mg, if given nurse would exceed max dose and break rules requiring written authorisation, in questionnaire most nurses said they would not obey, in study 21/22 nurses complied without hesitation and 11 did not notice dosage discrepancy
situational variables of obedience - ao1
Milgram additionally carried out a large number of variations to consider the situational variables that may affect the amount of obedience: proximity, location and uniform
proximity - referring to how physically close the teacher and learner are, or the teacher and experimenter, in the original study the teacher and learner were in adjoining rooms, in the variation they were placed in the same room, obedience dropped from 65% to 40%, in the touch proximity condition where the teacher had to force the learners hand on the electroshock place rates dropped to 30%, when experimenter left the room and gave instructions via telephone rates dropped to 20.5%
location - after changing location from the prestigious university to a run down building the obedience rates dropped to 47.5%, high but less than baseline
uniform - in original the experimenter wore a grey lab coat as a symbol of authority, when switched for someone in ordinary clothes obedience dropped to 20% (lowest)
situational variables of obedience - ao3
+ research support with Bickman, 3 male researchers gave orders to randomly selected members of the public, one dressed in a suit, one as a milkman and one as a guard, Hickman found that most likely to obey guard (80%) than the milkman or civilian (40%), supporting theory that uniform conveys authority
+ cross cultural replications, miranda et al repeated milgrams study in Spain and found high obedience rates (90%) suggesting that it does not only apply to American males but also to females and other cultures
- lack of internal validity, participants may have worked out it was a set up as even milgram recognised the variation with the replacement to be forced/fake therefore some of the participants may have gone further or stopped early, therefore we do not know the real obedience rates or whether they are just due to demand characteristics.
explanations for obedience (agentic state) - ao1
one proposed explanation by milgram is that the reason one obeys to destructive authority is because the person does not take responsibility, instead they are acting for someone else as an agent.
in the agentic state theory people will operate in two different ways in social situations and the change between them is known as agentic shift:
autonomic state - acting as independent individuals, aware of consequences of actions and make informed decisions
agentic state - carries out orders with little personal responsibility, sees themselves under the authority of another, carry out orders without question
individual will remain in agentic state due to binding factors which include aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore the damaging effects and reduce the moral strain as the fault and responsibility lie in the victim and authority figure
explanations for obedience (agentic state) - ao3
+ can be applied to milgrams study as it can be argued that the participants viewed themselves as subordinates of the experimenter and not responsible for their actions, after being debriefed participants reported they knew it was wrong but felt they were expected to obey
+ Blass and Schmitt showed some students a film of milgrams study and asked them to decide who was responsible for harming the learner, blame fell onto the experimenter and it was also indicated that the experimenter was a scientist and had authority therefore participants were merely following orders
- research evidence has also refuted the idea that agentic state can explain the Nazi’s behaviour. Mandel explained one incident in the German Reserve Police Battalion 101 where men obeyed orders to shoot civilians in Poland even when no direct orders were given to do so and were told they could do other duties, police still preferred to shoot.
explanations for obedience (legitimate authority) - ao1
most societies are structured in a hierarchal way meaning people in certain positions hold authority over the rest, these include parents, teachers and police, from early childhood we are taught to obey these legitimate authority figures because we trust them or fear punishment
one consequence of this legitimacy of authority is that some people are granted the power to punish others (police and courts can punish criminals), uniforms are often a symbol of legitimate authority
problem lies when it becomes detructive, such as powerful leaders using legitimate authority for destructive purposed.
explanations for obedience (legitimate authority) - ao1
+ explains the functioning of a civilised nation, police help prevent crimes, without police society would fail
+ explains cultural differences in milgrams study, when replicated in Australia only 16% went to full voltage, in Germany 85% went to full, shows the cultural differences in perceived legit auth and how different upbringings within different cultures may alter who we view as having legit auth and how we obey them.
- not all legit auth figures should be obeyed, milgrams study showed that people will obey even if leads to harm to another person even if we disagree with the order
therefore we should be teaching children to question the orders if they are unethical demands to prevent destructive authority - some people abuse their legit auth for example Harold shipman was a trusted justified auth figure as a doctor and was still able to kill 200 patients without suspicion
dispositional explanation of obedience - ao1
Adorno believed that one particular characteristic being an authoritarian personality makes one more likely to be obey, likely developed due to receiving harsh discipline from parents during upbringing usually involving physical punishment, creates feelings of hostility and cannot take anger out on parents due to fear so act submissively to parents and all authority figures, can be measured using the F Scale which requires ops to rate the extent of their own agreement to certain statements, this personality includes traits like being preoccupied with power, hostile to people of lower status, servile to those of perceived higher status, inflexible in beliefs, conformist and conventional.
dispositional explanation of obedience - ao3
+ research support by miller showed that individuals who scored high on the F scale were more likely to obey an order to hold electric wiring while completing a test showing that authority will be obeyed even if harming yourself if you have this personality
+ in a follow up study using some of milgrams obedient and disobedient participants they were asked to complete a MMPI personality test and the F scale as well as a series of open ended questions about relationship with parents and attitudes to experimenter and learner, little difference in the MMPI scale, higher levels of authoritarian traits in the obedient participants on the F scale, also were more likely were to report distant/negative relationship to parents, perceive experimenter as admirable
- has little ecological validity because it cannot explain real life examples of mass obedience, it is highly unlikely that the whole German population during the nazi occupation had an authoritarian personality, it is more likely that they shared the same struggles in life and displaced fear of the future onto a perceived inferior group (scapegoating)
- based on flawed methodology, all worded in the same way so it is easy to get a high score, all questions closed so no room for explanation, Adorno knew scores before interviews about family and study so would have shown interviewer bias, f scale lacks validity and reliability
explanation of resistance to social influence (social support) - ao1
One reason that people can resist the pressure to conform/obey is if they have an ally present, supporting their view, this can build confidence and allow individuals to remain independent as they no longer have a fear of being ridiculed and they have conformation that their answer is more likely to be right
effect may only be short term as if the dissenter returns to conform so will the participant .
conformity - pressure to conform can be reduced if there are others not conforming, these people don’t necessarily have to be correct, Asch study is an example as in unanimity variation when one correct dissenter dropped to 5.5%, incorrect dissenter dropped to 9%
obedience - pressure to obey can be reduced if there is another who disobeys as shown in Milgrams study where obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when another disobedient confederate was present
explanation of resistance to social influence (social support) - ao3
+ Gameson et al provided supporting evidence, he found that larger groups provide a stronger social support system making resisting much easier, when participants were put into groups 88% resisted the pressure to conform to the same smear campaign that other confederates developed, emphasising significant influence of ss
+ gamesons study has high ecological validity as apps were unaware they were taking part in a psychological study and therefore were unlikely to have shown demand characteristics and the task was realistic (having a discussion about behaviour standards)
- only really works when group size is under 10, then one dissenter is enough to influence nonconformity and disobedience, however in the real world group sizes are massive and one dissenter in a big group will have very little influence, studies are restricted to small groups and are not representative of groups in the real world
explanation of resistance to social influence (locus of control) - ao1
proposed by Julian Rotter and refers to a persons perception of the degree of personal control they have over their behaviour
those with a high external locus of control see their future and actions as resulting largely from outside factors such as luck or fate
those with a high internal locus of control feel a stronger sense of control over their lives, active seekers of information, rely less on opinion of others, more likely to resist pressure and social influence
those with an internal loc are more likely to be able to resist pressures to conform/obey as they are more likely to base their decisions on their own beliefs and thus resist pressures,
additionally they tend to be more self confident, achievement orientated, higher intelligence and reduced need for social approval
explanation of resistance to social influence (locus of control) - ao3
+ supporting evidence from Oliner and Oliver who interviewed two groups of non-jewish people who lived through the holocaust, also compared 406 people who protected and rescued jews and 126 people who did not, the rescuers were found to have a internal locus of control, therefore internal loc more likely to act
- analysis of data from American obedience studies have shown that over time people are becoming more resistant to obedience, however they are also showing more of an external locus of control, if resistance to obedience and loc were linked we should be seeing more internal loc which challenges the link
- criticism of the method of measuring loc, the original questionnaire by rotter was devised in 1967 where society had different viewpoints and may not be relevant in todays world, therefore lacking temporal validity.
minority influence - ao1
occurs when very persuasive small groups or individuals change the way the majority behaves and thinks, causes conversion which is when individuals change private beliefs because of minority influence
minority groups are most likely to be convincing when they are
committed - demostrating dedication to their belief maybe via sacrifices (augmentation principle), taking risks, showing they are not acting out of self interest
consistency - repeating the same message, two types synchronic (within members) or diachronic (over time), allowing attention to be drawn to minority and majority to reassess and consider issue more carefully
flexibility - majority is more likely to be influenced if the minority is flexible, shows they are willing to listen to other opinions, negotiate and compromise, more likely to listen and take argument more seriously, but need to find a balance between looking too inflexible and uncompromising and extremists and attention seekers.
minority influence - ao3
+ wood et al carried out a meta analysis of almost 100 similar studies and it was found that minorities who were seen as consistent were the most influential, indicating that consistency is the most important factor
+ Martin et al gave participants a message supporting a viewpoint and measured their support, in one condition participants heard a minority view agreeing and in the other heard a majority view, after both groups were exposed to opposing opinions, the group who heard minority were significantly less likely to change their own views, minority is powerful because it holds risk and so forces people to reconsider own views
+ emphasis on consistency, commitment and flexibility have real life application as they can inform minority groups about about the best way to behave in order to exert the maximum amount of influence.
role of social influence in social change - ao1
Social change is when whole societies change and adopt new attitudes, beliefs, behaviours
it occurs through minority influence processes, begins when a minority view challenged the majority view and is eventually accepted by the majority
minority is a slow process and there are multiple stages involved:
drawing attention to the issue - making majority aware of issue
consistency of position - more influential when express arguments consistently over time
deeper processing - other people start to pay attention to issue
augmentation principle - minority appears willing to suffer for their views they are seen as more serious and committed
snowball effect - initial small effect then spreads more widely until tipping point where minority becomes majority and NSI/ISI kick in
social crypto amnesia - change has occurred but source and message has become disassociated
examples include shift in attitudes towards race and sexuality, women’s suffragette movement or African civil rights movement
