Social Influence

Question 1

Explanations for Conformity

Answer 1

• Conformity is a type of social influence in which individuals will feel succumbed to real or imagined pressure from a majority group, resulting in them changing their behaviour.
• Normative Social Influence
  Is when an individual will agree with an opinion of the majority because they desire to be liked or accepted. This can lead to Compliance.
• Informational Social Influence
  Stems from the desire to be right. This is when an individual is unsure about a piece of information, so they agree with the majority group because they believe it is correct. This can lead to Internalisation.

Evaluation

1. Lucas et al (2006) asked students to give answers to mathematical problems that were easy or more difficult. There was greater conformity to answers when they were difficult rather than when they were easy. This was most true for students who rated their maths skills to be poor.
   This study shows that people conform in situations where they don’t know the answer, which is exactly the outcome predicted by the ISI explanation.
2. Individual differences in NSI. For example, those who are less concerned with being liked are less affected by NSI than those who care more about being liked. These people,are in greater need of affiliation.
   McGhee and Teevan (1967) found that students high in need of affiliation were more likely to conform.
3. ISI and NSI work together which contradicts Deutsch and Gerrard’s ‘two-process- approach’. For example, conformity is lowered when there is one other dissenting individual. This dissenter may also reduce the power of NSI because the dissenter provides social support or may reduce the power of ISI because there is an alternative source of information.
4. Individual differences in ISI. For example, Asch (1955) found that students were less conformist (28%) than other participants (37%)
   * Kelman (1958) suggested that there three types of Conformity.

• Compliance
  This is a superficial and temporary type of conformity in which an individual will publicly agree with views but will disagree privately. The behaviour lasts only when the group is present.

*Identification
This is when an individual behaves the same way with the majority because they value aspects of the belief.

• Internalisation
  This is a deep and permanent type of conformity. Individuals take on a belief because they genuinely accept it. The behaviour is continued even when the group is absent.

Question 2

Wittenbrink & Henley 1996

Answer 2

Found that participants exposed to negative comparison information about African Americans (which they were led to believe was the view of the majority) later reported more negative beliefs about a black target individual.

Question 3

Asch’s Line Study (1951, 1955)

Answer 3

Aim: To investigate the extent to which social pressures from a majority group could affect a person to conform

Method:

1. Asch tested 123 male American undergraduates and they were grouped between 6 - 8 confederates. All participants were always seated second to last.
2. On the first few trials, all the confederates gave the correct answer but started to make errors
3. Out of 18 trials, they made errors in 12 of them.

Results:

1. Participants gave the wrong answer 37% of the time
2. 25% didn’t conform on any trial
3. 75% conformed at least once
4. When interviewed they said they conformed to avoid social rejection

Conclusion: These findings support the idea of Normative Social Influence and Compliance

Variations:

1. Group Size
Conformity tended to increase as the group size increased. When it reaches 4-5 confederates, there was little change. This is the optimal size.
One: 3% increase
Two: 13% increase
Three: 32% increase

2. Difficulty in task
   Line judgement was made harder, this increased the rate of Conformity due to Informational Social Influence. Participants were unsure with the answer, therefore, the went along with the majority answer.
3. Unanimity (Social Support)
   The presence of a non-conforming confederate decreased the rate of conformity to 5.5%

Evaluation

1. Biased Sample
   All 123 males of the similar age group. This isn’t representative of the whole American population, therefore, findings cannot be generalised elsewhere. This study lacks population validity
2. Lack of Ecological Validity
   The task of Line Judgement was trivial and artificial therefore this cannot reflect real life situations.
3. Ethical Issues
   Participants were not told the true nature of the study which means they were deceived breaking the ethical guideline of Deception.
   Also, participants were in a stressful environment which could have caused them psychological or emotional harm which breaks the ethical guidelines of Protection from Harm.
4. Concurrent Validity
   Sherif 1935 conducted a study into conformity. He found that when participants were alone they developed their own stable estimates which varied widely between participants. However, once they were grouped, the estimates tended to converge and become more alike.
   Supports the concept of conformity.
5. Perrin and Spencer (1980) repeated Asch’s original study with engineering students in the UK. Only one student conformed in a total of 396 trials. It may be that engineering students were more confident about measuring lines than the original sample and therefore were less conformist. But it could also be that Asch conducted this study in the 1950s and this was a time that individuals would conform to establish the social norm. But society has changed a lot since then and people are less conformist today.
   This is a limitation of Asch’s research because it means that the Asch effect is not consistent across all situations and may not be consistent across time and so is not a fundamental feature of human.

Question 4

Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment (1973)

Answer 4

Aim: To investigate how readily people would conform to social roles of the guards and prisoners in a role playing exercise.

Social Roles: The parts people play as a member of various social groups.

Method:

1. Zimbardo set up a mock prison in the basement of the Psychology department in Stanford University.
2. They advertised for student volunteers and then selected those who were deemed emotionally stable after psychological testing
3. There were 24 male participants who were paid $15 per day.
4. They were randomly assigned the roles. 3 guards would work an 8 hour shift and 3 prisoners would share one cell.
5. The prisoners were arrested at their homes, driven to the prison blindfolded and then were photographed, deloused and were given their prison number

Findings:

1. Both groups settled into their roles after a few hours
2. Guards started behaving in a cruel and sadistic way.
3. Prisoners then started taking their 16 rules seriously.
4. After 36 hours, one prisoner had to be released due to uncontrollable bursts of screaming.
5. The study was terminated after 6 days instead of the planned 14.

Conclusion: The guards, prisoners and researchers easily conformed to their roles which shows that the simulation was very realistic.

Evaluation

1. Field Experiment
   The 24 participants’ behaviour are more likely to reflect real life because of the natural settings. This therefore has high ecological validity
2. Sample
   The sample only consisted of 24 American males which is not representative of the whole American population. This therefore has a lack of population validity.
3. Ethics
   Participants were not protected from harm. After only 36 hours of the experiment, a participant had to be released due to uncontrollable screams. This could have caused participants to have short or long term psychological and emotional stress.
   Also, lack of full consent. The participants who played the role of the prisoners did not consent to being arrested at their homes and driven blindfolded (which could have caused harm also).
4. Demand Characteristics
   Most of the guards later claimed they were just acting. The participants were playing a role, their behaviour may not have been influenced by the same factors which could affect individuals in real life. Therefore, lack of ecological validity
5. The study altered the way US prisoners are run. Juveniles accused of federal crimes are no longer housed before trial with adult prisoners due to risk of violence against them.
6. Fromm (1973) accused Zimbardo of exaggerating the power of the situation to influence behaviour and minimising the role of personality factors (dispositional influence) For example, only a minority of guards behaved in a brutal manner. Another third were keen on applying the rules fairly. The rest actively tried to help and support the prisoners, sympathising with them.
   This suggests that Zimbardo’s conclusion - that participants were conforming to social roles - may be over-stated. The differences in the guards’ behaviour indicate that they were able to exercise right and wrong choices, despite the situational pressures to conform to a role.

Question 5

Milgram’s Study into Obedience (1963)

Answer 5

Obedience is a form of social influence in which an individual follows direct orders from an authority who has the power to punish them.

Aim: Milgram wanted to seek out the answer as to why the Germans followed malicious orders from Hitler.

Method:

1. It was conducted at Yale University
2. Milgram recruited 40 male participants through volunteer sampling aged between 20 - 50 who received $4.50
3. The draw was fixed to ensure the participant would always be the teacher.
4. The teacher and researcher went into a room that contained an electric generator that gave voltages between 15 and 450V
5. The teacher was told to read out a pair of words that the learner had to remember. Each incorrect answer would result in a shock that would increase.
6. At 180V the learner shouted that he couldn’t stand the pain. At 315 there was no more reactions from the learner.
7. The experimenter would give the teacher prods each time he hesitated. Included, “the experiment requires you to continue”

Findings:

1. 12.5% stopped at 300V
2. 65% continued to 450V
3. Qualitative data was collected: stutters, sweating, trembles and groans
4. 84% felt glad to be part of the study once knowing the true nature

Evaluation:

1. Orne & Holland (1968) argued that participants behaved in the way they did because they did not really believe in the set-up. They guessed that the electric shocks were not real. The study therefore lacked internal (face) validity because Milgram was not testing what he intended to test.
   However, Sheridan and King (1972) conducted a similar study where real shocks were given to a puppy. Despite the real shocks, 54% of the male student participants and 100% of the females delivered what they thought was a fatal shock. This suggests that the effects in Milgram’s study were genuine because people behaved in the same way with real shocks. Milgram himself reported that 70% of his participants said they believed the shocks were real.
2. Sample was unrepresentative
   The study consisted of 40 white american males which isn’t representative of the entire population. Lacks population validity.
3. Good external validity
   Milgram argued that the lab environment accurately reflected wider authority relationships in real life. For example, Hofling et al (1966) studied nurses on a hospital ward an found that 21 out of 22 nurses obeyed orders from doctors over the phone even though they knew that they would be breaking the hospital rule. This suggests that the processes of obedience to authority that occurred in Milgram’s lab study can be generalised to other situations. So his findings do have something valuable to tell us about how obedience operates in real life.
4. An alternative explanation; Social identity theory
   The key to obedience lies in group identification. In Milgram’s study, participants identified with the experimenter - they identified with the science of the study. When obedience levels fell, this was because the participants identified less with the science and more with the victim or with another group.
   Haslam and Reicher (2012) analysed the behaviour of the participants. They looked at how a person behaved every time one of the four prods were used. The first three prods do not demand obedience, they appeal for help with the science “The experiment requires that you continue”. The fourth prod demands obedience, “You have no other choice, you must go on”. Every time the fourth prod was used, the participant quit.
5. Ethical issues
   Baumrind (1964) was very critical of the ways Milgram deceived his participants. Milgram led them to believe that the allocation of the roles as teacher and learner was random but it was fixed.
   Also, the deception that the electric shocks were real. Baumrind objected because she saw deception as a betrayal of trust that could damage the reputation of psychologists and their research.

Situational Variations: The baseline at Yale was 65%

1. Location
   The status of the place where the order is given is a relevant factor
   When conducted in a run down office the rate of obedience dropped to 47.5%
2. Uniform
   Authoritative figures have specific outfits. When the experimenter played the role as a member of public the rate of obedience dropped to 20%
3. When conducted in other countries
   Germany: 85% Italy: 85% Australia: 16%

Question 6

Why People Obey - Social-Psychological Factors

Answer 6

1. A Socially Obedient Environment
   Our experiences have taught that an authority figure is generally trustworthy
   - Hofling’s study in which 21/22 nurses broke hospital rules because they received orders over the phone by a doctor shows that they believed doctors are generally trustworthy.
   Conducted in field environment
2. Gradual Commitment
   Orders start off small and reasonable then they start becoming unreasonable. It is hard for people to notice.
3. Agentic State
   A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure. This frees us from the demands of our conscience and allows us to obey even a destructive authority figure.
   - Autonomous state: when a person is free to behave according to their own principles and therefore feels a sense of responsibility for their actions.
   - The shift from autonomy to ‘agency’ is called the agentic shift.
   - Milgram suggested that this occurs when a person perceives someone else as a figure of authority. This other person has greater power because of their position in the societal hierarchy.
   - Binding factors are aspects of a situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the moral strain they are feeling.
4. The Role of Buffers
   It prevents a person from seeing the inevitable consequences of their actions
   - In Milgram’s study, the learner and teacher were in separate rooms so the teacher (naive participant) could not see the consequences of their actions (the learner being electrocuted)
5. Legitimacy of the authority figure
   An explanation for obedience that suggests we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. This authority is justified by the individual’s position of power within a social hierarchy.
   - Destructive authority. Problems arise when the authority becomes destructive. History has shown charismatic and powerful leaders can use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes, ordering people to behave in ways that are callous, cruel and dangerous.
   - Destructive authority was clearly shown in Milgram’s study when the experimenter used prods to order participants to have in ways that went against their conscience.

Evaluation

1) Blass and Schmitt (2001) showed a film of Milgram’s study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the learner. The students blamed the experimenter rather than the participant. The students also indicated that the responsibility was due to legitimate authority but also due to expert authority (because he was a scientist)
This is a strength because they recognised legitimate authority as the cause of obedience.

2) limited explanation
The agentic shift doesn’t explain many of the findings for research. For example, Hofling et al. The agentic shift predicts that as the nurses handed over responsibility to the doctor, they should have shown levels of anxiety similar to Milgram’s participants as they understood their role in the destructive process.
This suggests that the agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience.

3. Kilham and Mann (1974) replicated Milgram’s procedure in Australia and found that only 16% of participant all the way to 450V.
   However, Mantell (1971) found different figures with German participants which was 85%
   This shows that in some cultures, authority figures are entitled to demand obedience from individuals. This reflects the way that different societies are structured and how children are raised to perceive authority figures. Such supportive findings from cross-cultural research increase the validity of the explanation.
4. Another limitation of the agentic state explanation is that there is research evidence to show that the behaviour of the Nazis cannot be explained in terms of authority and an agentic shift.
   Mandel (1998) described one incident involving German Reserve police Battalion 101 where men obeyed the orders to shoot civilians in a small town in Poland. This was despite the fact that they did not have direct orders to do so, they were told they could be assigned to other duties if they preferred that.
5. Real - life crimes of obedience
   A strength of the legitimacy of authority explanation is that it can help explain how obedience can lead to real-life war crimes. Kelvin and Hamilton (1989) argue that the My Lai massacre can be understood in terms of the power hierarchy of the US Army.

Question 7

Dispositional Factors: Authoritarian Personality - Adorno et al 1950

Answer 7

Dispositional Factors is any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual’s personality

Authoritarian personality is a type of personality that Adorno argued was likely to obey an authority and be dismissive of ‘inferiors’. They have conventional attitudes towards gender, race, sex

Aim: wanted to investigate whether prejudice is a result of having the A-personality and wanted to understand anti-antisemitism

Method:

1. Collected 2000 middle-class white Americans
2. They developed scales to investigate their unconscious views towards other racial groups
3. Scales included the F-scale which tests the A-personality

Findings:

1. People with the personality identified with strong people and were contemptuous of the weak
2. Showed excessive respect to those of higher status
3. Had fixed and distinctive stereotypes
4. A strong positive correlation was found between having the personality and prejudice

Evaluation

1. Response bias could have occurred
   Participants could have provided answers that were more socially acceptable. So, these findings cannot be deemed as accurate. They have appeared more authoritarian because of this
2. There was a lot of participants.
   This increases the population validity because prejudice normally occurs in white middle classed people so having 2000 of them is a good representation.
   However, this study was only conducted in America so you cannot generalise these findings to other countries and cultures.
3. Methodological problems.
   The f-scale has been criticised because every question is worded in a certain direction. This means it is possible to get a high score for authoritarianism just by ticking the same line of boxes down one side of the page. People who agree with the items on the f-scale are therefore not necessarily authoritarian but just have the tendency to agree with everything.
4. Limited explanation
   This explanation does not explain obedient behaviour in the majority of a country’s population, For example, in pre-war Germany, millions of individuals all displayed obedient, racist and anti-semitic behaviour. This was despite the fact that they differed in personalities in all sorts of ways. It is extremely unlikely that they could all possess an authoritarian personality.
   This is a limitation of Ardono’s theory because it is clear that an alternative explanation is much more realistic - that social identity explains obedience. The majority of the German people identified with the anti-semitic Nazi state.
5. Milgram and Elms (1966) conducted interviews with a small sample of fully obedient participants, who scored highly on the f-scale, believing that there might be a link between obedience and authoritarian personality. However, this is merely a correlation between two measured variables. This makes it impossible to draw conclusions that authoritarian personality causes obedience. There may be a ‘third factor’ involved. Perhaps both obedience and authoritarian personality are associated with a lower level of education and are not directly linked to each other at all (Hyman and Sheatsley 1954)

6.

Question 8

Resistance to Social Change

Answer 8

1. Social support is the presence of people who resist pressure to obey or conform which can help others to the same.

Conformity
> Pressure to conform can be reduced if there are others not conforming
> In Asch’s study, when a confederate went against the majority, it enabled the participants to also follow their true beliefs. However, when the non-conforming confederate started to conform again, so did the participant

Evaluation
1. Allen and Levi 1971 found that conformity decreased when there was one objector in an Asch type study. This occurred even when the objector wore thick glasses and said he had difficulty with his vision.

Obedience
> Pressure to obey can be reduced if there are others not obeying.
> The rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the participant was joined by a disobedient confederate. The disobedient confederate acts as a model for the participant to copy.

Evaluation
1. Gamson et al 1982 found higher levels of resistance in their study than milgram because participants were in groups.
29 out of 33 groups rebelled which shows peer support is linked to greater resistance

2. LoC is what an individual thinks direct their life goals and behaviour

Internal Loc - think they are mostly responsible for what happens to them
External Loc - think their behaviour is based on external forces. E.g. God

Rotter 1966 proposed the concept of LoC
> He created a questionnaire involving choosing between two paired statements
> Continuum: is a scale that varies in how people explain their behaviour. E.g High external LoC
> People who are internal are more likely to resist pressure to conform or obey because they base their decisions on their own beliefs. They tend to be more self-confident and less need of social approval

Evaluation

1. Holland 1967 repeated Milgram’s study and measured if people were external of internal.
   37% of internals didn’t go to highest voltage whereas 23% of externals didn’t.
   This shows internals have a greater resistance to authority. This increases the validity of the LoC explanation
2. Twenge et al 2004 contradicts LoC
   They analysed data from American obedience from 1960 to 2002. over this time period people have been more resistant to obey and become more external. This challenges the link between LoC and increasing resistant behaviour. This could be because of a changing society which causes things to be out of control.

Question 9

Minority Influence

Answer 9

MI is a form of social influence in which a minority of people persuade the majority to adopt their beliefs.
> MI is most likely to lead to Internalisation

1. Consistency
   The minority keep the same beliefs both over time and between all members of the group.
   > Synchronic consistency: they’re all saying the same thing
   > Diachronic consistency: they have been saying the same thing for some time
   This will make people reconsider their views
2. Commitment
   The minority clearly demonstrates dedication. They sometimes do extreme activities that are risky, which shows commitment.
3. Flexibility
   They show flexibility by accepting the possibility of compromise

Evaluation

1) Moscovici et al (1969)

Aim: To investigate whether a consistent minority will influence the majority. This will show if they succumb to ISI.

Method:

1. Six participants (4 naive ones) were asked to view a set of 36 blue coloured slides that varied in intensity.
2. Each group had 2 confederates who consistently said the slides were green on 66% of the trials

Results:
> Participants gave the same incorrect answer on 8.42% of the trials
> 32% gave the same incorrect answer on at least one trial.

Conclusion:
> MI had an influence on the majority even though the answers were obviously wrong. This is due to the consistency of the confederates.

> Lacks mundane realism
The task and situation is something people will not do in real life therefore findings cannot be generalised. This lacks ecological validity

> Lacks temporal validity
Study was conducted in the 60s. Behaviour and influences could have drastically changed. People are more independent

> . Reliable.
It is easy to replicate due to the basicness of the procedure

> Unique study
Studies weren’t typically conducted on females. Moscovici using only 4 females doesn’t give us an insight during the time period. Also, it is a small sample so it isn’t representative of the entire female population

2. Martin et al (2003) gave participants a message of supporting a particular viewpoint and measured their support. One group of participants then heard a minority group agree with the initial view while another group heard this from a majority group. Participants were then exposed to conflicting views and their support was measured again.
   They found that people were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group rather than if they were shared with a majority group.
   This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect, supporting the central argument about how the minority influence process works.
   > Independent group, no order effects, demand characteristics are avoided
3. Wood et al (1994) carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies (to Moscovici) and found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential. This suggests that consistency is a major factor in minority influence.

Question 10

Social Change

Answer 10

occurs when whole societies adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things.
E.g. Accepting gay rights

Role of Minority Influence

1. Drawing Attention through social proof.
2. Consistency of people with the same beliefs
3. Deeper processing of the issue. People who have accepted the view are now realising the unjust of the issue
4. Augmentation Principle: if a person performs an action in which there are known consequences then their motive for acting must be very strong
5. Snowball Effect: a process that starts at a small significance, then increasingly becomes larger due to increasing number of supporters
6. Social Cryptomnesia: when a social change has occurred, that attitude becomes the social norms in that culture. However, the source of the MI is often forgotten.

Normative Social Influence:
> In Asch’s research he highlighted the importance of dissent in one of his variations, in which one confederate gave correct answers throughout the procedure. This broke the power of the majority, encouraging others to also dissent.

> Such dissent has the potential to ultimately lead to social change. Environmental and health campaigns incrwasingly exploit conformity processes by appealing to NSI. They do this by providing information of what other people are doing.
Examples include reducing litter by printing normtive messages on litter bins like “Bin it - others do”

Obedience:
Milgram’s research shows the importance of a disobedient role model. In one variation, a confederate refuses to give shocks to the learner. The rate of obedience in the participants then fell drastically
> Zimbardo 2007 said how obedience can be used to create social change through gradual commitment. Once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes much more difficult to resist a bigger order.

Evaluation

1. MI happens slowly and indirectly
   Nemeth 1986 argues that the effect on MI is most likely indirect and delayed. Indirect because the majority is influenced on matters related to the issue but not the central issue. Delayed because the effects may not be seen for some time.
   This could be considered a limitation of using MI to explain social change because it shows that its effects are fragile and its role in social influence is very limited.
2. NSI can lead to social change
   Nolan et al 2008 investigated whether social influence processes led to a reduction in energy consumption. They hung messages on doors in San Diego every week for a month saying that other residents were trying to reduce their energy. They found that there was a huge decrease in energy usage. This is a strength because it shows that conformity can lead to social change through the operation of NSI
3. Stereotypical minorities
   Bashir et al 2013 investigated why people resist social change. They found that their participants were less likely to associate themselves with what was seen as negative even if they did agree with the views. E.g. the stereotype that feminists were man haters or environmentalists were tree huggers.
   The researchers then advised minorities to behave in a way that won’t reinforce negative stereotypes because it will be off-putting to the majority.
4. MI doesn’t necessarily lead to social change.
   Minorities are not only lacking social power but may be seen as deviant by the majority. They may be seen as creating the potential for change rather than leading directly to social change.
5. Kruglanski claims social change through terrorism may be understood by using the principles of social change. Terrorists show consistency and show willingness to die for their beliefs, showing the augmentation principle.