Social Influence Flashcards
(55 cards)
What is conformity?
A form of social influence defined as ‘yielding to group pressures’, a change in a persons opinions or behaviour as a result of pressure from a person or group
What are the proposed 3 types of conformity?
Internalisation- Making beliefs , values and attitudes of the group of your own, changing your beliefs publicly and privately, more likely to be permanent.
Identification- Temporary/short term change of behaviour in the presence if a group e.g. acting more professional at work
Compliance- Following other people’s behaviour to gain their approval, you publicly agree but privately disagree, temporary change likely to occur do to NSI
What is ISI?
The need to be right, they look to others copying or obeying them to be right. Usually leads to internalisation and occurs in situations where we don’t have the knowledge.
What is NSI?
The need to be liked and be part of a group, when a person’s need to be accepted drives compliance. Occurs when a situation is ambiguous.
Evaluate NSI and ISI:
+ = Evidence supporting link between NSI and bullying, suggesting real-life application. Found that a boy can be manipulated by a bully to bully another child by providing a goal to the boy’s friendship group so the boy will bully another to get approval
+ = Evidence supporting ISI, Asch’s line study
- = NSI and ISI may not be completely exclusive, a dissenting confederate can provide social support reducing effects of both NSI and ISI, this means that it may be more beneficial to look at NSI and ISI as complementary rather then mutually exclusive mechanisms.
Explain the procedure of Asch’s study:
123 male American undergrads in groups of 6 consisting of 1 true participant and 5 confederates.
Aim- To investigate conformity and majority influence
- Participants and confederates were presented with 4 lines; 3 comparison lines and 1 standard line
- Asked to state which of 3 lines was the same length as standard, the real ppt always answering last or second to last.
- confederates would all give the same incorrect answer last or second to last.
What were the findings of Asch’s study?
37% conformed
25% never conformed
75% conformed at least once
What are the three factors Asch studied on affecting level of conformity?
Group size, task difficulty, unanimity of majority.
How does group size effect conformity?
An individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group
With only one or two confederates conformity was low, three confederates and conformity rises to a significant level, has no substantial effect past 3.
How does unanimity effect conformity?
When joined by a dissenting confederate conformity fell to 5.5%.
How does task difficulty effect conformity?
An individual is more likely to conform when the task is difficult, Asch altered the comparison lines making them more similar in length,
What are the weaknesses of Asch’s study?
- Lacks ecological validity, cannot be generalised to real life conformity as it does not reflect the complexity of real life conformity.
- Only used American males, subject to gender bias (beta) as it generalises to females anyway.
- Ethical issues due to deceiving ppts.
What are the strengths of Asch’s line study?
- High internal validity - strict control of extraneous variables, e.g task used and timing of assessment. They also ensured the confederates also knew the correct answers.
- Lab experiment, extraneous and confounding variables are controlled meaning replication is easy
- Supports NSI, ppts conformed to fit in with the group
What was the procedure of the Stanford Prison Experiment?
The basement of Stanford uni was converted to a prison, MALE american volunteers were paid to take part, psychologically tested beforehand to make sure of sound mind
- Randomly assigned to role of guard or prisoner and had to wear specific uniforms
- Prisoners were only referred to by their number
- Guards were given props and worked in 8 hour shifts and were allowed to control the prisoners freedoms.
The behaviour of the ppts was observed
The experiment was terminated after 6 days
What was the aim of Zimbardo’s study?
To investigate how readily people would conform to social roles in a simulated environment, specifically to investigate why ‘good people do bad things’.
What were the findings of the SPE?
Identification occurred very fast
- Guards began to harass and torment prisoners in harsh and aggressive ways, they were demanding of obedience.
- Prisoners would only talk about prison issues and snitch on other prisoners to the guards to please them.
- On the second day the prisoners staged a rebellion, within the first four days three prisoners were released early due to signs of psychological harm.
The findings suggested that social roles has become internalised.
What are the strengths of the SPE?
- Real-life application, research changed the way that US prisons are run e.g. young and adult prisoners being kept seperate
- Full debrief after the study, makes the study more ethically acceptable.
- The amount of ethical issues with the study led to the formal recognition of ethical guidelines .
What are the weaknesses of the SPE?
- Lacks ecological validity, the study suffered from demand characteristics because the ppts knew they were participating in a study so may have changed their behaviour. The ppts simply knew the study was not real so they acted.
- Lacks population validity, sample consisted of American men so cannot be generalised to other genders and cultures, the findings may be culture bound (individualist)
- So many ethical issues, lack of informed consent, psychological harm (3 ppts left early), this would be deemed unacceptable according to modern ethical standards.
What is the explanation for obedience: Agentic state?
When a person believes that someone else will take responsibility for their actions, the person shifts from autonomous state to agentic state (agentic shift), people are more likely to obey when in the agentic state because they dont believe that their actions have consequences that they will suffer from.
What is the explanation for obedience: Legitimacy of authority?
How credible the figure of authority is, people are more likely to obey if they are seen as credible and legitimate, this is why students are more likely to listen to parents, teachers than unknown adults. In Milgrams study the experimenter was legitimate because he was a scientist.
What is the explanation for obedience: Situational factors?
The appearance of an authority figure (if they are wearing a uniform), the location/surroundings(Milgrams study at Yale, lower obedience in replicated study in rundown office), and proximity (a person is more likely to act when they are less able to see the negative consequences of their actions and are in closer proximity to the authority figure.
What was the aim of Milgrams experiment?
To observe whether people would obey a figure of authority when told to harm another person
What were the findings of Milgrams study?
66% went up to 450V, no ppts stopped below 300V, vast majority were prepared to give lethal shocks
What was the procedure of Milgrams experiment?
40 male volunteers given the role of a ‘teacher’ and a confederate given the role of ‘learner’, through what the ppt thought was random allocation.
- The ppt asked the confederate a series of Q’s
- Whenever the confederate got it wrong the ppt had to give them a electric shock
- The shocks incremented by 15 volts at a time ranging from 15V to 450V, ppts thought the shocks were real but they were fake and the confederate was acting.
The experimenter gave a series of prods/orders when ppts refused to administer shocks
