social influence Flashcards
(46 cards)
1
Q
What is conformity?
A
- group pressure causes a change in behaviour
- majority influence
2
Q
What are the three types of conformity?
A
- compliance
- identification
- internalisation
3
Q
What groups can influence behaviour?
A
- membership group
- reference group
4
Q
what is internalisation?
A
- conforming to the group because you accept its norms
- you agree publically as well as privately
5
Q
What is identification?
A
- Conforming to a group because we value it
- prepared to change views to be accepted by it
- conforming to a social role
6
Q
What is compliance?
A
- superficial agreeance with the group
- going along with it publically but holding a view in private
7
Q
what is normative social influence?
A
- a need for acceptance and to be liked or to be part of a group
- you agree publicly but maintain your own beliefs in private
- leads to compliance
8
Q
what is informational social influence?
A
- a need for certainty and to be correct in a situation - often ambiguous situations.
- you look to guide your opinion/behaviour and both publicly and privately agree
- often leads to internalisation
9
Q
what did jenness demonstrate?
A
- when we are unsure of how to behave we look to others for information - especially in ambiguous situations
- jenness demonstrated support for informational social influence as an explanation for conformity.
10
Q
what did asch demonstrate?
A
- people conform to others even though they are clearly wrong
- people fear standing out and being ridiculed.
11
Q
what are situational factors?
A
influences external to the person which can be controlled
12
Q
what are dispositional factors?
A
influences internal to the person which cannot be controlled.
13
Q
what was the aim of aschs study?
A
to investigate how people respond to group pressure in an unambiguous situation to see if even then people are influenced by what others think
14
Q
what was the method of aschs study?
A
- 123 male american psych students
- groups of 5-7 confederates
- semi circle formations around a table with naive pp near the end
- shown two large cards one with a standard line and one with three comparison lines
- 18 trials - first 6 confederates gave the correct answer
- 12 critical trials the confederates purposely chose the wrong answer
15
Q
what was the results of aschs study?
A
32% conformed in the critical trials
0.04% conformed in the control trials
75% pp conformed at least once
16
Q
what was the conclusions of aschs study?
A
- people are influenced by group pressure even in an unambigous task
- high levels of independence where shown
17
Q
what was jenness research into isi?
A
- Participants had to make individual, private judgements of the number of jellybeans in a jar
- Participants then had time to discuss their estimates in a group, and discovered their estimates were very varied
- Participants then had to make another private estimate
- Jenness found that individuals second estimate tended to move towards the group estimate
18
Q
what is a strength of aschs study?
A
- highly reliable
- lab setting - confounding variables had little effect on results so results produced where consistent
- standardised procedures - replication produced the same results
19
Q
what is a weakness of aschs study?
A
- low ecological validity
- atificial task
- androcentric
- cant be genralised to the whole target population
20
Q
how did group size effect conformtiy?
A
- highest conformity in group of three
- adding anymore made little difference
21
Q
how did task difficulty effect conformtiy?
A
- making answer more ambiguous increased levels of conformity
- pp with high self efficacy less likely to conform
- isi
22
Q
how did anonymity effect conformtiy?
A
- when pp wrote answer down less conformity
- no fear of judgement or ridicule
23
Q
how did unanimity effect conformtiy?
A
- if another confederate disagreed with the group conformtiy dropped
- gives pp more confidence
- less fear of judgemnt or ridicule
24
Q
how did culture affect conformity?
A
- confromoty greater in colectivist cultures like japan than induvidualost cultures like america
25
what is a social role?
the parts individuals play as part as a social group to meet expectations of the situation
26
what are examples of social roles?
- teacher
- police officer
- politicion
27
what was the aim of zimbardos prison study?
aimed to investigate how easily people can conform to social roles in a fake priosn environment
28
what was the method of zimbardos prison study?
- 21 male american students found through news paper ad
- arrested from homes - given unifrom and reffered to by number
- guards where told no violence and where given a unifrom sunglasses a club and handcuffs
- - zimbardo played role of prison super intedant
- each pp tested for mental health issues or criminal record
29
what was the results of zimbardos prison study?
- guards harrassed prisoners constantly
- prosoners rebelled- barricading inside prison cells and hunger strike
- ended after 5 days
30
what was the conclusion of zimbardos prison study?
- conformity to social roles was an automatic process
31
what is a weakness of zimbardos prison study?
- not genralisbale - only american males of college age from same area
- not reflect whole target population
- pp collected from advert may have one personality type
32
what is a strength of zimbardos prison study?
- highly applicable
- led to prison reforms
- better training for guards
- more rules and regulations within psyhcology
- less police brutality
33
what was riecher and haslams findings?
- replication of zimbardos prison study
- pp didnt conform naturally
- guards didnt identify with the role and chose not to implicate authority
- prisoners odentified as a group and a prison break led to the regime collapsing on day 6
- a self governing commune later collapsed as some had more pwoer than others
- a conspiracy to install a new prisoner guard scheme occured but the experiment was stopped before it could occur
34
what is obedience?
when someone acrs in reposnse to a direct order form an authority figure however they may disagree with the order privatley
35
where cna obedience be seen in the real world?
- holocaust
-vietnam
- bosnian war
36
what method did milgram use?
- controlled observation
37
what was the aim of milgrams study?
to investigate whether in certain circumstances a normal person would give somebody a potentially lethal electric shock if told to do so by an authority figure
38
what was the method of milgrams study?
- 40 volunteers through newspaper ad
- paid 4.50 where paired with a stooge learner mr wallace who they where told had a hert condition
- leaner strapped to chair and given increasing electric shocks if they failed the memory task howeveer the shcoks wherent real
- volts ranged from 15 -450
- at 300 the leaner banged on wall and didnt answer the next question
39
what was the results of milgrams study?
- no ppp stopped below 300 volts
- 65% went on to 450 voltsn
- observations indicated pp showed signs of extreme rension with some have sesiours
40
what was the cinclusions of milgrams study?
- obedience had little to do with dispotion and situational factors made it difficult to obey
- found 13 factors which influence obedience
41
what is a strength of milgrams study?
- similar resutls found in other studies like one conducted on a tv show where 80 % of pp went on to full dosage to unconsious pp
42
what is a weakness of milgrams study?
- pp experienced extreme stress
- debreifed but thoguh the deception would give psychologists a bad reputation
43
what factors influenced obedience
-techer + leaner in same room
- teacher forces hand of leaner onto shock plate
- teacher and experimenter in same room
- change in location
- unifrom
- a secind teacher brought in to shock leaner
- a second teacger refuses to shock leaner
44
what is agency theory?
- in cases of obedience to destructive authority pp beleve they are acting on behalf of sm else and are not responsible
- this is the agentic state
- most of the time we are in an autonomous state where we have fre will
- when people are in the prescence of a percieved authority figure they undergo the agentic shift
- binding fators allpow us to block moral strain
45
what is legitimacy of authority?
- those at the top of percieved socail heirachy we percieve there authoriy as legitimate
- - we know thye have power to punish us so we are willing to give up independence and trudt them
46
