SOCIAL INFLUENCE

Question 1

Conformity

Conformity

Answer 1

A change in someone’s behaviour or beliefs because of real or imagined pressure from others

Question 2

Conformity types

Compliance

Answer 2

Go along with others in public but privately disagree.

Question 3

Conformity types

Identification

Answer 3

Identifying with the group, wanting to be a part of it. Publicly change behaviour even if privately disagree

Question 4

Conformity types

Internalisation

Answer 4

Genuinly accept group norms. Private and public change

Question 5

Conformity explanations

Normative social influence (NSI)

Definition, research support, and example

Answer 5

Copying behaviour because we want to be liked and accepted by the group.
Research- Asch
E.g. Smoking because others in your peer group smoke

Question 6

Conformity explanations

Informational Social Influence (ISI)

Definition, research support and example

Answer 6

A need to be right when in an ambiguous situation.
Research- Jenness
E.g. looking at people around you at a posh restaurant to see what fork/knife they are using

Question 7

Asch’s study

Aim

Answer 7

To see whether social pressure from a majority, could affect a person to conform

Question 8

Asch’s study

Procedure

Answer 8

He used a line of judgement task, where he placed real naive participants in a room with 7 actors, who agreed their answers in advance. the real pardiciparts were deceived and led to believe that the others were real participants. His participants consisted of 50 male students from USA

Question 9

Asch’s study

Results

Answer 9

Average conformity rate: 37%
% of pps that conformed on at least one critical trial: 74% % of pps that never conformed: 26 %.

Question 10

Asch’s study

Name the variations

Answer 10

Group size, Unanimity and Task difficulty

Question 11

Asch’s study

Group size

define, findings

Answer 11

The number of confederates varied between 1-15
Findings: with 1 confederate conforming to the wrong answer was only 3%, with 2 confederates it was 13%.
Adding nore confederates made little difference.

Question 12

Asch’s study

Unanimity

define, findings

Answer 12

(agreement)
Asch introduced a truthful confederate or a confederate who was dissenting but inaccurate.
Findings: The presence of a dissenting confederate reduced conformity. where one of the confedeates gave the correct answer conformity dropped to 5%. where one of the confederates gave a different incorrect answer, conformity dropped to 9/

Question 13

Asch’s study

Task difficulty

define, findings

Answer 13

Asch made the line judging task harder by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar in length.
Findings: conformity increased when the task was more difficult. So
ISI plays a greater role when the task becomes harder. The situatios is more ambiguous, so we are more likely to look to others for guidance + assume they’re right

Question 14

Asch’s study: Evaluation

Whats one strength of Asch’s study?

Answer 14

P-support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty
E- for example, Lucas et al (2006) asked their ppts to solve easy and hard maths problems.
E- Participarts were given answers fron 3 actor students. The ppts conformed more when problems were harder.

Question 15

Asch’s study: Explanation

Whats one limitation of Asch’s study?

perrin and spencer

Answer 15

P-lacks temporal validity
E - The USA was affected by McCarthyism (fear of Communism) at the time, so people were scared to go against the majority.
E - Perrin & Spencer replicated Asch’s study and only had one conforming response in 386 trials
L - This suggests that conformity levels change over time and that Asch’s research could be regarded as a ‘child of its time’

Question 16

Asch’s study

What is one criticism of Asch’s study?

neto

Answer 16

P-lacking population validity as only American men took part
E - This matters because Neto found that women conform more than men as they value social relationships more.
L- This suggests that conformity levels are sometimes even higher than Asch found, his findings are solely limited to American men.

Question 17

Zimbardo’s study

Aim

Answer 17

Do individuals behave in negative ways because of their personality or is it the situation they are in

Question 18

Obedience: Social Psychological Factors

Agentic state

Answer 18

When we act on behalf of another person.

Question 19

Obedience: Social Psychological Factors

Autonomous state

Answer 19

We see ourselves as being responsible for our behaviour.

Question 20

Obedience: Social Psychological Factors

Agentic shift

Answer 20

When we move from seeing ourselves as being responsible for our behaviour to seeing someone else as being responsible for it

Question 21

Obedience: Social Psychological Factors

Binding factors

Answer 21

Reduce the ‘moral strain’ of obeying immoral orders. Keeps them in the agentic state

Question 22

Obedience: Social Psychological Factors

Legitimacy of authority

Answer 22

We obey people at the top of the hierachy

Question 23

Obedience: Social Psychological Factors

Destructive authority

Answer 23

Charismatic leaders can sometimes use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes

Question 24

Obedience: Dispositional Factors

Dispositional explanation

Answer 24

Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of internal characteristics. The individual’s personality.

Question 25

# Obedience: Dispositional Factors Authoritarian personality

Answer 25

A personality type that is more likely to obey people in authority. Formed in childhood as a result of strict parenting and parents high standards

Question 26

# Adorno Aim

Answer 26

To find support for the dispostitional explanation of obedience

Question 27

# Resistance to SI Social support

Answer 27

The prescence of others who resist to show that resistance is possible

Question 28

# Resistance to SI Locus of control

Answer 28

How far a person believes that they are in control of their own lives Internal LOC- Less likely to conform Extenral LOC- More likely to conform

Question 29

# Minority influence What is it?

Answer 29

A form of social influence where one person/small group influences the behaviour and beliefs of a majority

Question 30

# Minority influence Who studied this?

Answer 30

Moscovici (1969)

Question 31

# Zimbardo's study Zimbardo's SPE findings

Answer 31

Initially, the prisoners rebelled but the guards reinforced brutal punishments and imposed disturbing rules. The experiment had to stop after 6 days instead of 2 weeks because many of the prisoners experienced psychological disturbances

Question 32

# Zimbardo's study One limitation of Zimbardo's study? | Ethics

Answer 32

P- Ethical issues arose during the study E- Zimbardo was both the lead researcher and also played a role of prison superintendent E- A student who wanted to leave the study spoke to Zimbardo, who replied as a superintendent worried about the running the prison rather than the researcher L- Zimbardo couldn't protect his ppts from harm because his superintendent role conflicted with his lead researcher role.

Question 33

# Zimbardo's study One strength of Zimbardo's study | rwa

Answer 33

P- Conformity to social roles has real world application E- Zimbardo believes that the same conformity to social roles in the SPE occured at Abu Ghraib,a military prison in Iraq in which prisoners were tortured and abused by american soldiers E- This, along with no accountability to higher authority, made the abuse more likely L- Suggests that situational factors, combined with an opportunity to misuse the power associated with certain roles, can lead to people behaving in tyrannical and abusive ways

Question 34

# Zimbardo's study One limitation of Zimbardo's study | DC

Answer 34

P- Demand characteristics may have affected the experiment E- Ppts bvr may have been because of deman characteristics created by the situation they found themselves in E- Movahedi found that students unfamiliar with the SPE correctly guessed it's purpose and could accurately predict the behaviour of the prisoners and guards L- This suggests that the internal validity of the SPE may have been affected

Question 35

# Zimbardo's study One strength of Zimbardo's study | Control

Answer 35

P- Procedure was highly controlled E- Before the experiment, ppts were given tests to assure that none had medical/psychological conditions and no crimincal convictions E- Ppts were also randomly allocated to the roles of either prisoner or guard so that personality differences can be ruled out CP- However, high control of variables and artificial environment of the study, the findings lack validity

Question 36

# Milgrams study Aim

Answer 36

How far people would go in obeying instructions if it involved harming another person

Question 37

# Milgrams study Procedure

Answer 37

* 40 american men volunteered to take part in a 'memory test' * The ppts and confederate drew slips from a hat to determine their role (rigged so ppt had teacher) * Teacher and experimenter went into another room with electric shock generator * Teacher was givenm words and student had to recall them back in order * When they get it wrong, teacher shocks student * If teacher said they wanted to stop, experimenter would prod them

Question 38

# Milgrams study Findings

Answer 38

* 65% of ppts continued to highest level (450V) * All continued to 300V * 14 stopped early (5 at 300V, 4 at 315, 2 at 330 and 1 at 345,360 and 375) * Ppts often showed signs of extreme tension by sweating, trembling and sweating

Question 39

# Milgrams study One limitation of Milgrams study | DC

Answer 39

P- research evidence to suggest hat the experiment lacks internal validity due to demand characteristics E- Orne and Holland argue that the ppts behaved the way they did because they didn't believe the shocks were real E- However, Sheridan and King carried out a similar study which found that even when they knew they were giving genuine shocks, the majority of ppts were fully obedient

Question 40

# Milgrams study One strength of Milgrams study

Answer 40

P- Supporting evidence of his findings E- A reality TV show in France replicated Milgrams study. When ppts were paid to give electric shocks to other ppts (who were actors), approximately 80% of ppts delivered the maximum shock to someone they believed to be unconscious E- The bvr shown by ppts in the show was almost identical to that of Milgrams ppts, supporting his conclusion about obedience to authority figures L- Suggests that findings are reliable and not just a one-off occurrence

Question 41

# Milgrams study One limitation of Milgrams study | Ethics

Answer 41

P- Goes against ethical guidelines E- Milgrams study violated guidelines set out by BPS to protect ppts. E.g. ppts in the study were deceived throughout the whole experiment like believeing the shocks were real. E- Baumrind argues that these ethical issues have further implications for psychologists as the public could begin to not trust them and not want to take part in future research L- Its impossible to replicate the procedyre to asses reliability of findings due to ethical guidelines

Question 42

# Minority influence 3 main processes involved in minority influence

Answer 42

* Flexibility * Consistency * Commitment

Question 43

# Minority influence How does consistency lead to minority influence

Answer 43

It shows confidence, commitment, and credibility, causing the majority to reconsider their own beliefs

Question 44

# Minority influence 2 types of consistency | define

Answer 44

Synchronic consistency (agreement between people in the minority) e.g. they’re all saying the same thing Diachronic consistency (Consistency over time) e.g. they’ve been saying the same thing for a while

Question 45

# Minority influence How does flexibility lead to minority influence

Answer 45

repeating the same points over and over again can be off-putting Nemeth (1986) argues that minorities should be prepared to be flexible and adapt their point of view

Question 46

# Minority influence How does commitment lead to minority influence

Answer 46

Minorities engage in extreme activities to draw attention to their views. These activities should be a risk to the minority as it demonstrates their commitment to the cause.