Social Influence Flashcards
(55 cards)
Describe Asche’s Study of conformity (Method)
-123 American men with 5-7 confederates.
-Shown standard line then comparison line
-6-8 confederates gave wrong answer before participant in total of 18 trials (12 critical).
-Conformity rate was 36.8%, 75% of p’s conformed at least once.
-25% never did conform, 5% every time, control less than 1%.
What was the results of Ache’s study and what were the variables responsible?
-With 3 confederates, conformity was 32% but little significant increase after (Group size).
-Conformity rate dropped with dissenter, whether they got it right or wrong as they disagree with majority (Unanimity)
-When stimulus and comparison lines were more similar conformity increased (Task difficulty)
Explain these variables
Group size- With 2 confederates conformity to wrong answer was 14%; with 3 rose to 32%.
Unanimity- Conformity reduced less than 25% when majority was unanimous.
Task difficulty- Conformity increased when task more difficult.
Evaluate Asche’s study (Limitation- Artificial)
-The situation and task were artificial.
-P’s knew they were in a research study (demand c’s). The task was trivial and there was no reason not to conform.
-Therefore, findings do not generalise to everyday life (especially those situations where consequences of conformity are important).
Another limitation (Little application)
-His findings have little application.
-Only American men were tested by Asche. Neto (1995) suggested that women might be more conformist because they are more concerned about social relationships.
-The USA is also an individualistic culture.
-Therefore, this means Asche’s findings tell us little about women’s conformity and other cultures.
One strength (Other evidence)
-There is other evidence to support Asche’s findings.
-Lucas (2006) asked p’s to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems. P’s were given answers (falsely) claimed to be from other students.
-The p’s conformed more often on test when questions were harder.
-Therefore, this shows Asche was correct that task difficulty is a variable affecting conformity.
What are the different types of conformity?
-Internalisation
-Identification
-Compliance
Define them
Internalisation- Conforming to the group because you accept its norms- agree in public and private.
Identification- Conforming to the group because we value it- prepared to change views for acceptance.
Compliance- Superficial agreement with group- agree in public not private.
What are the explanations of conformity?
Normative social influence (NSI) and Informative social influence (ISI)
Define them
NSI- Concerns what is ‘normal’ or typical behaviour for a social group, based on idea of need for social approval, desire to be liked.
ISI- About information, we are uncertain about what behaviour or beliefs are right or wrong especially in new or ambiguous situations so we conform to group as we believe others are right, desire to be right.
Evaluate these explanations (Strength- Research support)
- A strength is research support for ISI
- Lucas (2006) found p’s conformed more to incorrect answers when maths problems were difficult.
- With easy problems p’s ‘know their own minds’
- Therefore, supports ISI as its what it would predict.
A limitation (Individual differences)
- One limitation is individual differences in NSI
- Some people are concerned about being liked by others- nAffiliators who have a strong need for affiliation (relate to others)
- This shows NSI underlies conformity for some people more than others- can be based on person.
However point (Seperation of NSI vs ISI)
-However, it is unclear which of NSI and ISI operate in studies and real life.
- A dissenter may reduce power of NSI (social support) or reduce the power of ISI (alternative support)
- Therefore, this means they operate together and are hard to separate in most real world situations.
Describe Zimbardo study (Procedure, Findings, Conclusion)
- 24 ‘emotionally stable’ students randomly allocated to roles of prisoners and guards in mock prison, social roles through uniforms and instructions about behaviour.
- Guards treated prisoners harshly- harassed them constantly, prisoners rebellion failed and became more depressed, study stopped after 6 days.
- Social roles have a strong influence on behaviour and they can be easily adopted.
Evaluate (Limitation- Exaggerated)
- One limitation is that Zimbardo exaggerated the power of roles.
- The power of social roles to influence behaviour may have been exaggerated in the SPE (from 1973). Only a third of the guards behaved brutally. The rest supported the prisoners.
- Therefore, this suggests the SPE overstates the view that the guards were conforming to a brutal role and minimised dispositional influences.
One strength (Control over key variables)
- One strength of the SPE is the control over key variables.
- Emotionally-stable p’s were recruited and randomly allocated the roles of guard or prisoner. Only had those roles by chance, so behaviour was due to role not personality.
- Therefore, level of control increased the study’s internal validity, so we have more confidence in drawing conclusions about effect of social roles on conformity.
Another limitation (harm)
- One limitation is that the p’s experienced significant psychological harm.
- Zimbardo’s decision to continue the experiment despite signs of emotional breakdown and the extreme reactions of both guards and prisoners demonstrates the need for strict ethical control in psychological experiments.
- Therefore, the study is unethical due to the psychological harm caused to the p’s in distressing.
Define obedience
Behaviour in compliance with a direct command, often one used by a person in a position of authority.
Describe Milgram’s baseline study (Procedure, findings and conclusion)
-40 American men given role of teacher through fixed draw.
- Ordered to give (fake) shocks to learner (confederate) by an experimenter.
- Shocks increased 15 volts with each mistake on memory task up to 450 volts.
- No p’s stopped before 300 volts and 65% went all the way to the top of the shock scale, 450 volts.
- Many showed signs of stress, most objected but continued anyway.
- Prior survey said 3% would obey.
- The study demonstrated that ordinary people are surprisingly likely to obey authority figures, even when those orders conflict with their own moral beliefs.
Evaluate Milgram (Strength- Control)
- Strength is Milgram’s use of standardised procedures (participant response pre-recordings and clear scripts for experimenter to follow) which led to a high level of control, ensuring each p had same experience.
- These clear instructions also enabled replications by Milgram and others.
- Results found in Milgram’s original experiment found to be reliable by Blass (2012), increases validity.
One limitation (methodological flaws) part 1
- Milgram’s original experiment and later variations have been criticised for multiple methodological flaws.
- The task, using shock generator lacks mundane realism, not applicable to everyday life.
Limitation (methodological flaws) part 2
- Also lacks ecological validity as Yale Uni not normal environment for p’s.
-People do obey but only in places they are familiar with, like work or school. - Orne and Holland claim task was so unusual that p’s acted to dc’s guessing Milgram’s aims.
Limitation (methodological flaws) part 3
- One more issue is gender bias.
- His base study and later variation lacked generalisability to women.
Another limitation (Unethical)
Yuh
