Social influence Flashcards
(10 cards)
Outline and evaluate one or more explanations of obedience. (16)
AO1:
Agentic state:
- Mental state where we feel no responsibility for actions, acting as an ‘agent’ for an authority figure.
- Allows us to obey destructive figures.
- Opposite is an autonomous state: act on our own principles, feel responsible.
- Agentic shift.
- Binding factors.
Legitimacy of authority:
- Likely to obey those who have authority of us, with power to punish.
- Authority is justified through their place in social hierarchy.
- Problems when legitimate figures become destructive.
- E.G: Experimenter in Milgram’s study using prods to encourage the participant.
AO3:
Strength of agentic shift = Research support, Milgram.
- Participants asked who was responsible if learner got harmed, experimenter said he was.
- Knowing they weren’t responsible, they continued.
- Acted as an agent.
Limitation of agentic shift = Rank and Jacobson’s study
- 16/18 nurses disobeyed doctor even though he was their authority figure.
- Most nurses remained autonomous and disobeyed.
- Agentic shift only accounts for some situations.
Strength of LoA = Explains culture differences
- Countries differ in degree to which people are obedient to authority.
- Kilham and Mann: Milgram style study.
- 16% female Australian participants shocked all the way to 450V.
- Mantell et al: Germans, 85%.
- In some cultures, authority is likely to be perceived as more legitimate.
Outline and evaluate how minority influence leads to social change. (16)
AO1:
- Minority influence: minority persuade others to adopt beliefs, attitudes, behaviours.
- Consistency, commitment, flexibility.
- Minority influence creates social change through these steps: Drawing attention, consistency, deeper processing, augmentation principle, snowball effect and social cryptomnesia.
AO3:
Strength = Research support for consistency.
- Moscovici’s study.
- When the participant’s were consistent with their answer they were more able to change the views of the majority.
- Shows value of consistency.
Strength = Research support for deeper processing.
- Change in majority’s position involves DP of the minority’s ideas.
- Martin et al: showed a message supporting a view and measured participant agreement.
- One group heard a majority agree, one heard a minority agree.
- Less willing to change view if they heard minority.
- Minority had been more DP.
Limitation = Artificial tasks.
- E.G: Asch and Moscovici.
- Doesn’t show how minorities influence the majority’s behaviours in real life such as jury decisions.
- Lack external validity.
Outline and evaluate research into conformity. (16)
AO1:
- Asch.
- Aim: assess extent to which people conform to opinion of others.
- 123 white American males, Yale uni.
- Procedure: In groups with other apparent participants, shown 2 cards with standard line and comparison line. Asked to say out loud which line was closest to standard.
Variables:
- Group size: Varied between 2 and 15. With 3 confederates, conformity rose to 31.8%, after 3 it levelled off.
- Unanimity: Conformed less when with a dissenter, allowed participant to act independently.
- Task difficulty: Made stimulus lines and comparison lines more similar, conformity increased due to ISI.
AO3:
Strength = Research support.
- Support for task difficulty.
- Lucas et al.
- Gave participants easy and hard maths questions.
- Conformed more when qu’s were harder.
Limitation = Artificial task and situation.
- Shown demand characteristics as they were in an unnatural situation.
- Groups don’t resemble real life groups, can’t be generalised.
Limitation = Limited application.
- All were American men.
- Can’t generalise to other cultures and genders.
- Tells us little about conformity in other social groups.
Describe and evaluate research into conformity to social roles. (16)
AO1 (Zimbardo):
- Aim: to see why prison guards behaved brutally.
- 21 American males, ‘emotionally stable’.
- Randomly assigned roles of guards or prisoners.
- Guards: sunglasses, uniform, handcuffs.
- Prisoners: Smock, cap and assigned numbers.
- Findings: Guards became more brutal and aggressive, prisoners became anxious and depressed. Guards began to exert their power more, frequent headcounts. Ended after 6 days rather than 14.
- Conclusion: Social roles have strong influence on behaviour.
AO3:
Strength = Had control over key variables.
- Only emotionally stable participants could take part.
- Randomly assigned to roles to reduce chance of bias.
- Increased internal validity.
Limitation = Lack of realism.
- Possible that participant behaviour were based on stereotypes of how they thought they should behave.
- Can’t explain social roles in real prisons.
Limitation = May have exaggerate power of social roles.
- Only 1/3 guards behaved brutally, another third acted fairly.
- Rest tried to support prisoners by showing sympathy and giving privileges.
Discuss the authoritarian personality as an explanation of obedience. (16)
AO1:
- Dispositional explanation proposed by Adorno, type of personality that is susceptible to obeying authority.
- F-Scale, measured if someone has an AP.
- F-scale study: 2000 middle class white Americans, measured unconscious attitudes towards others.
- With AP: submissive to superiors, dismissive to inferiors and highly prejudiced.
- Develops from harsh parenting.
AO3:
Strength = Research support.
- Milgram and Elms: Conducted fascism interview on 20 obedient participants from Milgram’s study, and 20 disobedient.
- Results were higher for obedient.
- Shows value of F-scale.
Limitation = F-scale is politically biased.
- Christie and Jahoda: very right wing and doesn’t count for left-wing authoritarianism.
- Decreases value and usefulness.
Limitation = AP can’t explain large-scale obedience.
- E.G: Nazi Germany.
- Germans had varying personalities, can’t be possible for them to all have an AP.
Outline and evaluate research into obedience. (16)
AO1:
- 40 male volunteers.
- Aim: Observe whether people would obey a figure of authority when told to harm another person.
- Drew lots to be the teacher or learner, but was fixed.
- The participant was the teacher and the confederate was the learner.
- Shocked the learner every time they got the answer wrong, went up by 15V each time.
- All went up to 300V, 65% went up to 450V and 12.5% stopped at 300v.
- Used prods to encourage the participant to continue: “The experiment requires you to continue”.
- Variables: proximity, location and uniform.
AO3:
Strength = Research support.
- French TV show, game of death.
Limitation = Ethical issues.
- Deception and no informed consent.
- Psychological harm to participants.
Limitation = Lack of ecological validity.
- Doesn’t reflect real life situations.
- Low mundane realism.
Outline and evaluate the role of social influence on social change. (16)
AO1:
- Shift in the beliefs or behaviour of a population.
- Process: Drawing attention, consistency, deeper processing, augmentation principle, snowball effect and social cryptomnesia. (EXPAND)
- Normative social influence: want to be liked, encourages the change of opinions/behaviour.
AO3:
Strength = RS for NSI.
- Nolan et al: hanging messages on the doors referring to energy consumption.
- When they know that others have done the same, they followed.
Limitation = Minority influence is only indirectly effective.
- Majority is influenced only when the matter relates to the central issue.
- Only shows that effects are fragile.
Limitation = Nature of deeper processing has been questioned.
- Deeply thinking is different to majority influence.
- Others disagree: majority influence causes deeper processing, when someone thinks different to us we are forced to think hard about their arguments.
Describe and evaluate ISI and NSI as explanations for conformity. (16)
AO1:
- Conformity: change in a person’s behaviour/beliefs due to real or imagined social pressure from an individual or group.
- ISI: conforming to be right, leads to a permanent change in beliefs/opinion, more likely to happen in a new situation or where there is some ambiguity.
- NSI: conforming to be liked, emotional process, leads to a temporary change, likely to happen in situations where you feel like you may be rejected or stressful situations.
- NAfilliators: people who are extremely concerned with being liked.
AO3:
Strength = Research support for NSI (Asch)
- When interviewing his participants, some said that they felt self-conscious giving the answers due to fear of disaproval.
- Conformity fell when participants wrote their answer down.
Strength = Research support for ISI (Lucas et al)
- Gave participants easy/hard maths questions.
- Conformed more when questions were harder due to the ambiguous nature.
Limitation = NSI doesn’t predict all conformity situations.
- Some people ae NAfilliators.
- More likely to conform.
- Are individual differences in conformity that cannot be explained through one theory.
Describe and evaluate Milgram’s research into obedience. (16)
AO1:
- Aim: To determine whether Germans are ‘different’.
- Participants: 40 American men who volunteered (advert in newspaper).
- Procedure: Drew fixed lots (participant was always teacher), P was given 15v shock at the start, instructed to shock learner at every wrong answer.
- Results: 100% went up to 300V, 12.5% stopped here, 65% went up to max 450V. He also collected qualitative data (behaviour like biting their lips).
- Prods.
- Conclusion: Germans are not different, other people will obey orders even if it goes against their morals.
AO3:
Strength = Replication, French game show.
- Audience gave ‘fatal’ shocks to another person, and showed similar behaviour as those in Milgram’s study.
- Supports original findings.
Limitation = Ethical issues.
- Participants were decieved and may have also experienced psychological harm.
- Many participants actually believed the shocks were real.
Limitation = Low internal validity.
- 75% of participants believed the shocks were real.
- However, 25% didn’t: demand characteristics, play acting.
- Lowers validity of findings.
Describe and evaluate two explanations of resistance to social influence. (16)
AO1:
Social support:
- Having support of others who are also going to resist, makes you more likely to also resist.
- Allows people to follow their own conscience as they see others who also have that view.
Locus of control:
- How you see the events in your life to be caused.
- Internal: more likely to resist, higher confidence, belief that you are in control of events.
- External: less likely to resist, believes in fate/luck.
AO3:
Strength for social support = Real-world research.
- Teen Fresh Start programme, discouraging pregnant teens to smoke.
- Those with a buddy were more likely to resist the social pressure.
Strength for LOC = Research support.
- Holland repeated Milgram’s study and studied whether people were I/E.
- 37% of internals did not continue to highest shock level, but only 23% externals did not.
- Increases validity of LOC.
Limitation = Limited role of LOC.
- Rotter: Situation may be a more important factor than LOC.
- LOC only affects someone’s behaviour in new situations.
