Social Influence Flashcards
(43 cards)
What is conformity?
A change in behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure.
What are the types of conformity?
Compliance, Identification and Internalisation.
What is compliance?
When you accept views publicly but not privately to gain approval and fit in.
What is identification?
When you conform to a group because you value the group and want to be apart of it.
What is internalisation?
When you fully accept the view, publicly and privately. Permanent conformity.
What are two EXPLANATIONS of conformity?
Normative social influence and Informational social influence.
What is NSI?
A desire to be liked, so we gain approval and fear rejection (compliance/identification).
What is ISI?
A desire to be right, go along with someone because we genuinely think they’re right (identification/internalisation).
What are the main research into conformity?
Asch: Line Study & Zimbardo: Prison Experiment.
What was Asch’s study?
123 American graduates, put among 6 confederates in a line judgement task. 18 trials but confederates lied on 12 critical trials, confederates would give wrong answers to see if ppt. would conform.
What did Asch find?
36.8% conformity on 12 critical trials. 75% conformed at least once.
Why did the participants conform?
- Distortion of perception - Really believed they were wrong
- Distortion of judgement - doubted their judgement.
- Distortion of action - didn’t want to be odd one out.
What did Asch conclude? (Variations)
Difficulty of task, as difficult increased, conformity did.
Size of Majority, as majority increased, conformity did.
Role of an Ally, when ppt. gained a partner, conformity decreased (reduced to 25%) as ppt. was more independent.
What was Zimbardo’s study?
Prison experiment, set up mock prison with male students paid $15 per day, randomly assigned guard or prisoner.
What did Zimbardo find?
Prisoners ripped uniforms, shouted and swore at guards. Guards harassed prisoners constantly. Prisoners rebelled and became depressed when put down.
What did Zimbardo conclude?
Power of situation to influence behaviour. All conformed to roles.
What is obedience?
Conformity to another’s authority.
What is the main research into obedience?
Milgram: Punishment Experiment.
What was his study?
40 male participants between 20-25. Ppt. was always teacher and learner was a confederate. The teacher could not see the learner, and read out word pairs to the learner, each word pair wrong he would shock the learner increasing in volts. 15 to 450V. At 300V learner began to scream, after 315V no response.
What did he find?
26 out of 40 subjects went to 450V (65% of ppts), all went to 300V.
What did Milgram conclude?
Everyone is surprisingly obedient to authority, suggests not evil people who commit atrocities but just people obeying orders.
What was Milgrams situational variables?
Proximity, location & uniform.
What did Proximity change?
Proximity: obedience fell as learner was in same room (40%), as experimenter gave orders over phone, obedience fell to 21%
What did Location change?
A variation of the expt. was done in a run down building, obedience fell to 47.5% as experimenter seemed to have less authority.
