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Psychology > Social Influence > Flashcards

Social Influence Flashcards

1
Q

What is social influence?

A

The effect of other people on our behaviour.

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2
Q

What are the 5 types of social influence?

A
  • Conformity
  • Obedience
  • Resistance
  • Minority influence
  • Social change
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3
Q

What is conformity?

A

A change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from others, in line with the group’s behaviours or opinions.

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4
Q

What are the 3 types of conformity?

A

Internalisation
Identification
Compliance

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5
Q

What are the two explanations for why we conform?

A

Informational social influence

Normative social influence

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6
Q

What is internalisation conformity?

A

When a person genuinely accepts a group’s norms and privately and publicly changes their opinions or behaviours.

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7
Q

What are the 6 steps for social change to happen through minority influence?

A 
Drawing attention
Consistency
Deeper processing
The augmentation principle (commitment)
The snowball effect
Social cryptomnesia (no memory of how change happened)
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8
Q

What is identification conformity?

A

When a person conforms because there is something about the group they admire. They are seen to go along with the group although they may privately not agree with everything the group stands for.

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9
Q

What is compliance conformity?

A

Going along with others in public, but not privately changing opinions or behaviours.

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10
Q

Describe Asch’s baseline procedure.

A

123 American male participants.
One naive participant in each trial, others were confederates.
Task was that there were two white cards, one had a standard line and the other had 3 lines of different lengths, and one was the same as the standard line. Participants had to say which line had the same length as the standard line.
Confederates purposely said the wrong answer before the participant said their answer.
Unambiguous task.

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11
Q

What were the results of Asch’s baseline study?

A

Naive participants agreed with the other’s incorrect answer 36.8% of the time.
25% never conformed.
75% conformed at least once.

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12
Q

What are 3 criticisms of Asch’s research?

A

Lack of temporal validity - 1950s, more general fear of being different.
Artificial situation and task - demand characteristics, act differently with strangers rather than friends.
Not generalisable - only American men, women tend to conform more.

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13
Q

What evidence is there in Asch’s study for Informational social influence and Normative social influence?

A

Participants were interviewed - some said the group must be right as there were more of them.
There was still some conformity when the responses were secret - they internalised their answers.

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14
Q

What happened in Lucus et al’s study and how does it support Asch’s research?

A

Participants solved easy and hard maths questions and 3 other students gave answers.
Participants conformed more often when the questions were harder, it supports Informational social influence, Asch claimed conformity increases when the task is more ambiguous.

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15
Q

What are the 3 variables affecting conformity in Asch’s research?

A

Group size - 3 confederates made conformity rise to 31.8%, any more makes little difference.
Unanimity - with a disagreeing confederate, conformity reduced to a quarter.
Task difficulty - task made more ambiguous makes participants more likely to look for other people’s answers and assume they are right.

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16
Q

How were a sample of participants gathered and assigned into two groups in the Stanford Prison Experiment?

A

24 male student from Stanford University were selected to play roles of Prisoners and guards in a mock prison after being screened for physical and mental health. They were decided into two groups by a flip of a coin - half were guards and half were prisoners.

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17
Q

What did the researchers do to emphasise the different roles in the Stanford Prison Experiment?

A 
Guards:
Picked uniform
Reflective sunglasses
Keys, handcuffs, batons
Went home after work
Prisoners:
Got arrested, blindfolded, stripped, deloused
Given numbers
Stayed in prison cells all day
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18
Q

What were the behaviours displayed during the study of the Stanford Prison Experiment?

A 
Guards:
Put prisoners in cupboards
Made prisoners clean toilets with bare hands
Abused and humiliated prisoners
Prisoners:
Rebelled
Emotional breakdowns after 36 hours (5 prisoners)
Obedient
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19
Q

What were Zimbardo’s conclusions relating to conformity in the Stanford Prison Experiment?

A

The prisoners and guards behaved the way they did because of the social roles they were in.
He felt it was evidence for the power of the situation to influence behaviour.

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20
Q

What evidence is there that the prison felt real to the participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment?

A

90% of prisoner’s conversation were about prison life.
One prisoners said afterwards ‘a prison run by psychologists instead of the state’.
One guard was dismayed at the way he acted, it wasn’t his character.
Prisoner wanted to do a hunger strike.
One refused to leave to repair his reputation.

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21
Q

Why do the controls Zimbardo used improve the validity of his study?

A

Independent groups design - screening for physical and mental health so we know the breakdowns were due to the situation.
Random allocation - removes bias, controls participant variables.

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22
Q

What are the criticisms of Zimbardo’s prison Experiment? (excluding ethics)

A

Lack of realism- argued participants were merely play acting and their performances were based on stereotypes.
Zimbardo ignored the role of dispositional factors - in the same situations, not all guards behaved the same, which suggests personality played a part.

23
Q

What are the ethical problems of the Stanford Prison Experiment?

A

Psychological harm
Physical harm
It was not clear participants could just withdraw - they had to apply for parole

24
Q

What is obedience?

A

Doing what an authority figure tells you to do.

25
Q

Describe Milgram’s sampling method for his study.

A

40 American male participants aged 20-50 from various occupational backgrounds. They were told that the study concerned the role of punishment in learning. Volunteer sampling from ad.

26
Q

How were the participants deceived in Milgram’s study?

A

Told study was about the role of punishment in learning.
Told there was another participant.
Told there was an equal chance of becoming learner or teacher.
Thought learner was actually being shocked.
Implied learner was being harmed (pounding on wall).

27
Q

What signs of distress were seen in Milgram’s study?

A 
Sweating
Trembling
Stuttering
Biting lip
Groaning
Digging fingernails into flesh
Nervous laughing fit
3 subjects had seizures
"I refuse to take responsibility"
28
Q

What were the results of Milgram’s study?

A

All participants went to at least 300 volts.

65% of participants went to the end and gave the full 450 volts.

29
Q

What were the conclusions of Milgram’s study?

A

Under certain circumstances, most people will obey orders that go against their conscience, showing blind obedience.

30
Q

Give examples of support for Milgram’s study having high internal validity.

A

Milgram reported 75% of participants though the shocks were genuine.
Sheridan and King - 54% of males and 100% of females delivered “fatal” shocks.
French show Game of Death - 80% gave maximum shock.

31
Q

Give examples of criticisms for Milgram’s study having high internal validity.

A

Orne and Holland argued participants behaved as they did because they were “play acting” and didn’t believe in the set up.
Gina Perry reported that only about half of them believed that the shocks were real after listening to tapes. Participants respond to demand characteristics.

32
Q

Give examples of criticisms of Milgram’s study.

A

Cannot be generalised

Low ecological validity

33
Q

What are the 3 situational variables of Milgram’s variation studies?

A

Location
Proximity
Uniform

34
Q

What were the percentages of full obedience of all the changes in situational variables in Milgram’s variation studies?

A

Baseline study - 65%
Run-down office - 47.5%
Teacher and learner in same room - 40%
Teacher forces learners hand onto plate - 30%
Experimenter gave orders by phone - 20.5%
Experimenter dressed in casual clothes - 20%

35
Q

What is legitimacy of authority?

A

Undisputed credibility of those higher than us in the heirarchy. We are happy to give up some of our control.

36
Q

What are the strengths of legitimacy of authority?

A

There is evidence to support it. A film of Milgram’s study was shown to participants and asked who was responsible for the harm. The participants blamed the experimenter, because of the idea of legitimacy of authority, the experimenter was at the top of the heirarchy.

37
Q

What is a limitation of legitimacy of authority?

A

It cannot explain why only some people obey because it is a situational explanation, all should be similarly affected in the situation. 35% of Milgram’s participants disobeyed.

38
Q

What is agentic state?

A

Following orders from an authority figure while feeling no personal responsibility

39
Q

What is a limitation of agentic state?

A

Incomplete explanation: The My Lai soldiers went beyond their orders by raping the women, they were not just blindly obeying.

40
Q

What is a strength of agentic state?

A

Milgram’s studies support agentic state. When participants resisted, the experimenter said ‘i’m responsible’ and then the participant often went through the rest of the procedure with no objections.

41
Q

What is agentic shift?

A

Moving from an autonomous state to an agentic state.

42
Q

How is the Authoritarian Personality measured?

A

Using the F-Scale which rates someone’s propensity to facism.

43
Q

What 3 characteristics does the Authoritarian Personality have?

A

Belief in obedience as being vitally important.
Respect of and submission to authority.
Domination of and contempt for minorities.

44
Q

What psychodynamic explanation did Fromm theorise for the Authoritarian Personality?

A

Childhood experience, caused by harsh parenting in childhood. They will respect authority figures in adulthood and displace their resentment on the weaker, minorities and the disadvantaged.

45
Q

What is a strength of the authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience?

A

Research to support it - Milgram gave F-scales to highly obedient ‘teachers’ from his studies and showed authoritarian personalities.

46
Q

What are the limitations of the authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience?

A

Incomplete explanation - doesn’t account for other personality variables in a population.
Political bias - ignores extreme left wing ideology which is just as authoritarian.
F-scale not accurate, some questions seem unrelated to AP and there may not be a way to report true opinions.

47
Q

Why may someone resist to conform?

A

Group size - less than 3 in majority
Lack of unanimity
Unambiguous task

48
Q

Why may someone resist to obey?

A 
No uniform
Low proximity 
Less formal location
Lack of legitimacy of authority
Not having an authoritarian personality
Autonomous state
49
Q

What is the situational factor social support?

A

The presence of others who do not conform or obey that allow participants to make up their own mind.

50
Q

What is the dispositional factor locus of control?

A

Internal - individual believing they control their own destiny eg. choices and efforts.
External - individuals believing that events are due to external factors eg. luck, God.

51
Q

What is minority influence?

A

A form of social influence where a minority persuade others to adopt their beliefs.

52
Q

What are the 3 necessary factors for minority influence to work?

A

Consistency
Commitment
Flexibility

53
Q

What was the task and conditions of Moscovici’s study of minority influence?

A

6 participants at a time were asked to estimate the colour (blue or green) of 36 slides. All slides were blue.
3 conditions:
Consistent minority of 2 confederates (said all slides were green)
Inconsistent minority of 2 confederates (said 24 were green, 12 blue)
No confederates

54
Q

What were the findings of Moscovici’s study of minority influence?

A

Participants in consistent condition called slides green 8.4% of the trials.
Participants in inconsistent condition called slides green 1.3% of the trials.
Control condition, wrong answer 0.25% of the time.

Psychology (17 decks)

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