social influence

Question 1

what is conformity?

Answer 1

conformity describes how we adjust our behaviour to follow the behaviour of the group we belong to.

Question 2

what are the three types of conformity?

Answer 2

-compliance
-internalisation
-identification

Question 3

what is compliance?

Answer 3

-publicly agrees, privately disagrees
-goes along with a group to gain approval/ avoid disapproval

Question 4

what is internalisation?

Answer 4

-publicly & privately agrees
-person accepts groups views

Question 5

what is identification?

Answer 5

-want to be associated with group
-adopts the group’s attitude and behaviour

Question 6

what is normative social influence and informational social influence?

Answer 6

normative = conforming to fit into group/ be accepted
informational= conforming because they don’t know right/wrong

Question 7

what is the research support for normative social influence?

Answer 7

Schultz et al
-exposed hotel guests to a normative message saying 75% of guests reused their towels each day
-this reduced towel usage by 25% each day

Question 8

what is research support for informational social influence?

Answer 8

participants exposed to negative information about african americans later repeated more negative beliefs about a black individual.

Question 9

describe asch’s study on conformity

Answer 9

procedure:
-123 students believed they were taking part in a “line judgement” vision test
-he placed 1 participant in a room of 6-8 confederates, who had agreed on answers in advance
-each person had to say their answer out loud, participant was always 2nd to last
-confederates gave the same incorrect answer on 12 critical trials

findings:
-32% conformed on the critical tials
-74% conformed to at least 1 trial
-25% never conformed

Question 10

what were the variables affecting conformity?

Answer 10

-group size
-unanimity of majority
-difficulty of task

Question 11

what are the weaknesses of asch’s study?

Answer 11

-cultural differences in conformity
-problems with determining effect of group size
-“a child of its time”

Question 12

outline the stanford prison experiment.

Question 13

evaluate the stanford prison experiment

Question 14

what is obedience?

Answer 14

obedience is a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual.

Question 15

outline milgrams study of obedience

Answer 15

procedure:
-milgram recruited 40 american male participants, who believed they were taking part in a study on memory
-participant = teacher , confederate = mr wallace/learner
-the teacher could hear but not see the learner
-the teacher had to give increasing severe electric shocks to the learner every time a mistake was made
-shocks increased from 15v to 450v (actually fake)
-if the teacher wished to stop, the experimenter told them to continue

findings:
-2/3 participants gave maximum shock
-all participants continued to at least 300v

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Question 16

what are situational factors in obedience?

Answer 16

-proximity of the learner
-proximity of experimenter
-location
-uniform

Question 17

evaluate milgrams study

Answer 17

strength- replications have supported milgrams findings
weakness- lacks internal validity, participants responded to demand characteristics
- ethical issues

Question 18

what are reasons for obedience?

Answer 18

-the agenetic state
-legitimacy of authority

Question 19

what is the agentic state?

Answer 19

agentic shift involves moving from an autonomous state into the agentic state in which the person sees themselves as an agent carrying out other people’s wishes.

Question 20

what is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 20

-we obey people further up a social hierarchy
-authorities have legitimacy through society’s agreement
-we hand control over to authority figures

Question 21

what is the authoritarian personality?

Answer 21

refers to a person who has extreme respect for authority and is more likely to be obedient

Question 22

what does the “F-scale” show?

Answer 22

those high on the “F-scale” tended to be:
-hostile to those of inferior status but obedient to those with a high status
-rigid in opinions
-uphold traditional values

Question 23

Outline Erms & Milgram’s study on authoritarians

Answer 23

-interviewed 20 fully obedient participants from milgrams original obedience studies
-they scored significantly higher on the F-scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient participants
-this suggests that obedient people may share many characteristics of people with authoritarian personality

Question 24

what are the explanations to resisting social influence?

Answer 24

-social support
-locus of control

Question 25

why is social support an explanation for resisting social influence?

Answer 25

-pressure to conform is reduced if other people are not conforming -pressure to obey can be reduced if another person is seen to obey

Question 26

what is high internal/external locus of control

Answer 26

high internal- the person places control with themselves high external- the person places control outside themselves (believe a higher power/others control their decisions)

Question 27

why is locus control an explanation for resistance to social influence?

Answer 27

people with high internal locus of control are more likely to resist social influence because they don’t rely on the opinions of others and are more confident

Question 28

what is minority influence?

Answer 28

refers to how a person or small group influences the majority to change their beliefs/ behaviour

Question 29

if a minority is to influence society, what three behaviours must they be?

Answer 29

-consistent -committed -flexible

Question 30

outline moscovici et al study of minority influence

Answer 30

-lab experiment -groups of 6 participants (2/6 were confederates) viewed 36 blue-coloured climes of varying intensity -they were asked to state if the slides were blue or green -in one condition, confederates consistently said the slides were green -in the other condition, the confederates were inconsistent and called 24 slides ‘green’ and 12 ‘blue’ -a control group was also used with no confederates findings: -consistent group: participants gave the wrong answer on 8.4% of trials -inconsistent group: participants gave the wrong answer on 1.3% of trials

Question 31

what is the conversion process in minority influence?

Answer 31

1) drawing attention to an issue 2) cognitive conflict 3) consistency of position 4) the augmentation principle 5) the snowball effect 6) social cryptomnesia

Question 33

what are the steps of social norms intervention?

Answer 33

1) identify a widespread misperception 2) use perception correction strategies 3) people moderate their behaviour