Social influence Flashcards
(32 cards)
What are the 3 types of conformity and their definitions
Internalisation: Conforming publicly and privately as they have accepted the groups view. The presence of the group is not needed.
Identification: Conforming publicly and privately as they feel a sense of group membership. Adjusting options to the group so maybe temporary if they leave the group.
Compliance: Conforming publicly but not privately as opinions may adjust just to be accepted
Define both types of social influence
Informational social influence: The need to be right because as humans we have a need to be certain and so we look to others to see their behaviours and opinions to help us shape our own.
Normative social influence: The need to be liked as we want others to like and respect us so we need to be accepted. Therefore we agree with them even if realistically we don’t.
What was the aim of Asch’s study
To assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others even in a situation where the answer is certain.
What 3 variables did Asch investigate and what did he find with the conformity rate
Group size: With increasing the number of confederates from 1.. 2 ..3 up to 15 a curvilinear relationship was found where conformity rose to 31% with 3 confederates
Unanimity: He introduced a separate confederate to disagree with the rest. The rate decreased to less than a quarter then when the majority was unanimous
Task difficulty: When he made the lines more similar in length conformity increased as participants may have been unclear so looked to others for guidance and assume their right (ISI)
What 3 conclusions can be made from the 3 variables related to Ash’s findings
Group size: Findings suggest that most people are very sensitive to the views of other because just 1 or 2 confederates was enough to start to sway opinions
Unanimity: Findings suggest that the influence of the majority depends to a large extent on it being unanimous compared to participants having someone else who disagrees
Task difficulty: Maybe the situation is more ambiguous when the task becomes harder and the participants are unclear on an answer so may be looking to others for help and assume they are right
What are 3 criticisms of Ash’s line study
Lacked ecological validity - as it was performed in artificial lab setting
Participants were deceived - by not being informed of the true aims which could be seen as an ethical issue as they may feel uneasy and as if they have been manipulated
Biased sample - as they were all American and all male meaning it cannot be generalised to other cultures and genders
What is a strength of Asch’s study (Research support)
Research support: Todd Lucas (2006) asked participants to solve maths problems
Participants were given answers from 3 (fake) students. Participants conformed more often when the problems were harder showing siilair results to those Asch collected.
Define cognitive dissonance and demand characteristics
CD: An unpleasant feeling when two people have two simultaneous contradicting ideas
DC: When a participant may change their behaviour within a research situation as they receive a cue revealing the purpose of the investigation.
Define collectivist vs individualist culture
Collectivist: A group of people who place more value on the collective rather then the individual
Individualist: A group of people who place more value on the individual and result then the collective
What was the aim and conclusion of Zimbardo
Aim: There had been many prison riots in America and Zimbardo wanted to know why prison guards behave brutally and understand the relationshp between prisoners and guards, social roles?
Conclusion: Social roles appear to have a strong influence in individuals behaviour. The guards became brutal and the prisoners became. submissive. All roles were taken up quite easily by all participants no matter the role
What are social roles and what do they do
The “parts” people play as members of different social groups. These give us expectations of how we and others should behave in a given role.
What are situational attributions compared to dispositional attributions
Situational: Blame a persons behaviour on the situation
Dispositional: A person acted a certain way because of their personality
Define human de-individuation and de-humanisation
De-individuation: Where individuals have a lower self-awareness and a weaker sense of personal responsibility for their actions. Such as people losing their sense of identity and resorting to unsocialised and anti-social behaviour.
De-humanisation: Degrading people by lessening their human quantities
Evaluate Zimbardo’s study + 1, - 2
+ Control: ‘Emotionally stable participants were chosen and assigned randomly to roles. This increased the internal validity of the study.
- Lack of realism: Participants may have just been play acting rather than genuinely conforming basing off stereotypes with one guard claiming he tried to be like a character he saw on TV
- Exaggerates the power of social roles: As only 1/3 of the guards actually behaved brutally, another third applied the rules faurly and the rest supported the prisoners (E.g - reinstating privileges)
Define obediance
A type of social influence which causes a person to act a certain way (response) to a direct order. The person giving the order usually has power or authority over them with the ability to punish.
What was the aim and conclusion from Milgram’s study
Aim: He designed a baseline procedure that could be used to assess obedience levels
Conclusion: German people are not ‘different’. The American participants in this study were willing to obey orders even when they might harm another person. He suspected other factors in the situation encouraged obedience so decided to conduct further studies to investigate these.
What were the 3 situational variables Milgram also conducted and what were the findings
Proximity: Teacher and learner were in the same room which led to a decrease in the obedience levels from the original 65% to 40%
Location: Conducted in a run-down office block rather than than in Yale University were obediance levels fell to 47.5%
Uniform: The experimenter was called away and the role was taken over by ‘an ordinary member of the public’ (confederate) in ‘everyday’ clothes rather than a lab coat. This led to a decrease to 20%, the lowest of these conditions.
What are situational variable vs dispositional variables
Situational: Features of the immediate physical and social environment which may influence a persons behaviour.
Define agentic and autonomous state
Agentic: A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour or actions as we feel we are acting on behalf of an authority figure.
Autonomous: Free to behave according to their own principles and feel a sense of responsibility for their actions.
Define legitimacy of authority
An explanation for obedience which suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us.
What are the 2 binding factors which allow and keep a person in an agentic state
Ignoring the damaging effect of their behaviour reduces the ‘moral strain feeling’
Shifting responsibility to the victim or denying the damage
What is destructive authority
When LOA becomes destructive. Such as leaders suing their legitimate powers for destructive purposes such as ordering people to behave in cruel and dangerous ways.
Define AP personality
A personality that Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority.
Submissive to those in higher status but dismissive of inferiors
Where does AP come from
It forms in childhood as a result of harsh parenting such as strict discipline and impossible high standards. Parents give conditioned love, depending on how they behave.
These experiences create hostility which they cannot express so their fear is displaced onto others who are weaker )or perceived to be)
