Social influence Flashcards
(25 cards)
Conformity
a type of social influence defined as a change in belief or behavior in response to real or imagined social pressure. It is also known as majority influence.
Compliance
This refers to instances where a person may agree in public with a group of people, but the person privately disagrees with the group’s viewpoint or behavior.
The individual changes their views, but it is a temporary and superficial change.
The behavior change is driven by the desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval (often due to normative pressure).
Internalisation
Publicly changing behavior to fit in with the group while also agreeing with them privately. An internal (private) and external (public) change of behavior. This is the deepest level of conformity were the beliefs of the group become part of the individual’s own belief system.
An example of internalisation is if someone lived with a vegetarian at university and then decides to also become one too because they agree with their friend’s viewpoint / someone converting religions would also be a good example.
Identification
Identification occurs when someone conforms to the demands of a given social role in society. For example, a policeman, teacher or politician. This type of conformity extends over several aspects of external behavior. However, there still be no changed to internal personal opinion. The change in belief/behavior may only last while within the group’s presence
Normative Influence
Normative social influence is where a person conforms
to fit in with the group because they don’t want to appear foolish or be left out. Normative social influence is usually associated with compliance,
where a person changes their public behavior but not their private beliefs.
Informational Influence
Informational social influence is where a person conforms because they have a desire to be right, and look to others who they believe may have more information.
This type of conformity occurs when a person is unsure of a situation or lacks knowledge and is associated with internalisation.
Asch’s Line Study Aim
Asch wanted to investigate whether people would conform to the majority in situations where an answer was obvious.
Aschs Line study procedure
In Asch’s study there were 5-7 participants per group. Each group was presented with a standard line and three comparison lines. Participants had to say aloud which comparison line matched the standard line in length.
In each group there was only one real participant the remaining 6 were confederates. The confederates were told to give the incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trails.
Aschs study results
Real participants conformed on 32% of the critical trials where confederates gave the wrong answers. Additionally, 75% of the sample conformed to the majority on at least one trial.
Factors effecting conformity
In further trials, Asch (1952, 1956) changed the procedure (i.e., independent variables) to investigate which situational factors Asch altered the number of confederates in his study to see how this effected conformity. The bigger the majority group (number of
confederates), the more people conformed, but only up to a certain point.
With one other person (i.e., confederate) in the group conformity was 3%, with two others it increased to 13%, and with three or more it was 32% (or 1/3). However, conformity did not increase much after the group size was about 4/5.
Because conformity does not seem to increase in groups larger than four, this is considered the optimal group size. influenced the level of conformity (dependent variable).
Support for NSI
Asch- when answers are given privately obedience dropped to 12.5%
Evidence for ISI
Lantane and Daley- pps were either tested alone or in a group of confederates who were instructed to ignore the smoke
Alone - 75% of pps reported the smoke within 2 mins
Group- less than 13% reported the smoke within 2 mins
Individuals conformed because they were unsure what to do
ISI for all instances
Perrin and Spencer- similar study to Asch but with engineering students and found little conformity
Limitations of Asch
Androcentric and culture bias- 50 male Americans cannot be generalised to the wider female population in relation to individual differences. All pps were American meaning it cannot be generalised to different cultures as we are unsure they would behave similarly to Americans.
Lacks ecological validity-
Artificial task and setting
Strengths of Asch
Provides evidence for isi and nsi
Pps were interviewed privately they said they conformed as they wanted to fit in and avoid rejection. When the task was made more ambiguous conformity increased.
Zimbardo aim
To see how people conform to social roles they are given. Specifically to test the situational vs dispositional hypothesis of prison violence
Zimbardo pps
24 emotionally stable male students who volunteered
Zimbardo Procedure
Pps were randomly assigned the role of prisoner or guard. The prisoners were arrested at home to add realism and given prisoner uniforms and numbers which they were referred to for the rest of the study. Guards were given mirrored sunglasses to avoid eye contact with or and nightsticks. The study took place in a mock prison in the basement of Stanford university’s psychology department. Zimbardo took the role of prison warden observed their behaviour unfold
Findings Zimbardo
Guards became increasingly dominating and controlling and the prisoners began increasing obedient and docile. Prisoners were made to do humiliating tasks such as cleaning the toilets with their bare hands and if they refused they were forced to do physical punishments such as pushups. Due to the brutality and numerous prisoners mental health declining the study was called off after 6 days instead of the 2 weeks it was supposed to last.
Limitations of Zimbardo
Ethics- pps were subject to physical and psychological harm. Zimbardo also made it difficult to withdraw as he denied many prisoners who asked and used the $14 as an incentive to continue which they took as they were students in need of money. However, zimbardo did debrief pps after and claimed no one had ongoing trauma.
Demand characteristics- it has been argued that pps were play acting rather than conforming to a social roles. Pps may have shown demand characteristics and behaved how they thought Zimbardo wanted them to act. One of the guards said he based his behaviour on a film “cool hand luke”. This questions validity of the findings as it questions whether these may reflect conformity to social roles
Strengths of Zimbardo
Evidence to suggest the study was real to the participants emphasised by the distress experienced by the prisoners.- prisoner 416 said he felt like it was a real prison but ran by psychologists rather than the goverment.
Random allocation- controlled individual differences. Minimises personality differences and increases validity of the study.
Milgram aim
To investigate how far people will go in obeying an authority figure
Milgram procedure
Milgram aim
To investigate how far people will go in obeying an authority figure
