social influence Flashcards
(51 cards)
What is conformity?
A change in a persons behaviour due to real or imagined pressure from a group or person
Describe Aschs study..
(1951)
a- to study conformity
p-123 American men, one ppt in a group of confederates. Had to match 3 lines to one. Confederates would say the wrong answer.
f-ppts agreed 36.8%of the time. 25% never gave a wrong answer.
c- people do conform under the influence of others.
what are variables which are investigated by asch?
Group size
unaminity
task difficulty
Evaluate Aschs study.
- Artificial task
-un generalisable, Only american men
-temporal difficulty
What are the types of conformity?
Internalisation- privately and publicly agreeing with group behaviour.
Identification- Changing opinion to be liked
Compliance- agreeing in public but not in private
What are the explanations for comformity?
informational social influence-the group must be right
normative social influence- to fit in
evaluate types of conformity.
+research support for NSI
within Asch’s interview after his study, many PPTS stated that they only answered wrong as they felt self conscious to stand out the group.
+research support for ISI
Lucas et al found that found that ppts conformed more to the group if the questions were harder.
-NSI does not predict conformity in every case
people may want to relate to the group rather than try to fit in
explain what social roles are
social roles are the parts which people play as members of society. such as teacher, student, police office.
these are accompanied by expectations that are deemed appropriate for the role
explain the Stanford prison experiment.
Zimbardo et al. (1973)
-set up mock prison basement at Stanford university.
21 men volunteers.
randomly assigned to either guard or prisoner.
they were encouraged to conform to social roles
uniform was given to both guard and prisoner
guards had a uniform- handcuffs and and mirror shades
prisoners stripped of their belongings and all gives the same uniform
The guards were constantly told that they had full control over prisoners.
explain the findings related to social roles (Stanford prison experiment)
The guards took up their roles, acting harshly.
the prisoners also rebelled, tearing up their uniform
this caused the guards to act more harshly.
after the rebels was put down, the prisoners became more anxious
conclude the Stanford prison experiment
social roles have a strong influence on an individuals behaviour.
the guards became brutal, whilst the prisoners became submissive.
Evaluate the Stanford prison experiment.
+ Controlled key variables
randomly chose the prisoner versus the guard which got rid of researcher bias, increasing internal validity
-lack of realism
the participants were acting off of stereotypes of how they were supposed to act, therefore shows little to actual conformity to social roles
-zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social roles to influence behaviour.
only one third of the guards acted in an aggressive manner, the rest tried to support the prisoners
-zimbardo took a dual role, acting as lead investigator as well as prison superintendent, which may have influenced the reactions to the prisoners
what is obedience?
obedience is a type of social influence where a person follows a direct order. the person issuing the order is often somebody of higher authority who has the power to punish.
Describe milligrams research into obedience.
A- to see how far a normal person would go to following orders from an authority figure. (interested in how the nazis did awful things under the authority of hitler)
p- 40 American Men (20-50yrs) volunteers used, told they were doing a memory study.
They were met with another ppt (confederate) and ‘randomly’ assigned teacher or learner.
the ppt would always be the teacher
the learner was strapped to a chair
the learner had to remember a pair of words, and if they got it wrong, would be administered a shock from the teacher. the shocks went form slight shock to intense, were they would experience excessive pain.
(an experimenter would oversee)
explain the findings of milligrams research
every participant went up to 300 volts
65% went up to 450 volts.
ppts showed extreme tension, three also experienced full blown seizures as they were so stressed.
what are the conclusions of milgrams search
German people were not different, as American people would go as far to obey authority.
Evaluate Milgrams research.
+research support
A French tv show replicated his study, and found that 80% of people administered the top shock to an unconscious man. this shows that findings were not due to special circumstances.
-low external validity
researchers found that PPTS may not have believed that the study was real, so therefore went along with the study due to demand charectaritics, as they listened to the tapings of milgrmas research and believed that only half believed that the study was real.
-ethical issues
deceived the ppts, suggesting they were taking part in a memory test, not what they were actually being tested for
also caused them harm mentally
what are situational variables within obedience ?
features within the environment which may influence a persons behaviour.
-proximity
-location
-uniform
explain how proximity was studied within obedience
in milgrams study, the teacher could hear the learner but couldn’t see him.
-in a proximity variation, when the teacher and learner were in the same room, obedience dropped from 65% to 40%
-in a touch proximity variation, the percentage dropped to 30%
-if the experimenter let the room and gave instructions via phone, obedience dropped to 20.5%
explain how location effects obedience
milgram did his study in a run down block rather than Yale (precious setting) and obedience dropped to 47.5%
as it decreased legitimacy and authoruity
explain how uniform effects obedience
if the experimenter was replaced with a normal member of the public who wore normal clothes, then obedience was reduced to 20%
uniform is a highly respected symbol of authority.
evaluate situational variables in relation to obedience.
+research support
in a separate study in NY, three experiments dressed up as, a normal person, police ect and told the public to do tasks such as pick up litter
people were twice as likely to obey the security guard rather than the normal person.
+cross cultural, findings have been replicated in other cultures and found similar results, meaning that its not just exclusive to American men
what are the two situational explanations of obedience?
-agentic state
-legitimacy of authority
What is the Agentic state?
(situational explanation of obedience)
A mental state where a person will do something as they feel no personal responsibility as they are acting as an agent for an authority figure
(nazi soldiers killing masses as they believe Adolf hitler will take blame)
