Social Influence - AO1

Question 1

What’s conformity

Answer 1

• type of social influence
• changes in beliefs/ behaviour to fit in
• real or imagined social pressure

Question 2

Types of conformity

Answer 2

• compliance (weakest) = superficial change: change in public with a group but don’t change personal, private opinion
• identification = conforming to the group while with them
• internalisation (strongest) = permanent change: accept the norms and change publicly and privately

Question 3

What’s Deutsch’s and Gerard’s theory

Answer 3

• people conform to be right = informative social influence (ISI)
• people conform to be liked = normative social influence (NSI)

Question 4

Asch’s research into conformity (baseline study)

Answer 4

• measuring length of lines
• 75% conformed at least once in all trials

Question 5

Asch’s variations

Answer 5

• Group size = with 3 confederates conformity rose but adding more didn’t effect
• Unanimity = when all confederates said the same answer (was unanimous) there was highest conformity
• task difficulty = the harder it was to work out the correct line length, conformity increased as participants look at others for guidance

Question 6

Zimbardo’s research (conformity to social roles)

Answer 6

• Picked random under-graduate males from the USA to play the role of prisoners or guards
• the prisoners and the guards identified with their social roles: prisoners referred to themselves as their number , the guards became abusive

Question 7

What’s obedience

Answer 7

• form of social influence
• where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual

Question 8

Milgram’s obedience study (baseline)

Answer 8

• wanted to understand why the German population followed Hitler’s orders in the Holocaust
• male participants were told to give the learner an electric shock if they got the wrong question
• 65% continued to the highest level of volts when the experimenter/ authorativr figure told them to

Question 9

Milgram’s variations

Answer 9

• Proximity = distance between the participant & the experimenter or the participant & the learner (when the authoritative figure gave orders to participants over the phone obedience was the lowest)
• Location = conducted the study in a run down area rather than Yale University and obedience fell (the experimenter has less authority)
• Uniform = the experimenter wore ordinary clothes rather than a lab coat and the obedience rate dropped to the lowest

Question 10

What’s the agentic state

Answer 10

Where someone feels no personal responsibility for their actions/ behaviour = acting as an agent for the authority
- doing something you don’t want to do but doing it anyway to obey

Question 11

What’s the autonomous state

Answer 11

A person feels free to behave to their own personal principals = feel a sense of responsibility

Question 12

What’s the agentic shift

Answer 12

The shift from autonomy to ‘agent’

Question 13

What’s binding factors

Answer 13

Aspects of a situation that allow people to ignore/ minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour

Question 14

What’s legitimacy of authority

Answer 14

A social psychological explanation for obedience that suggests we are likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us
- the authority is justified (legitimate) by the individuals position of power within the social hierarchy

Question 15

What’s social hierarchy

Answer 15

People in authority hold certain power over others below them
- the idea that we accept the fact that authoritative figures have to be allowed to exercise power in order for society to run
- people are willing to give up our independence and control to authority to exercise their power
- legitimate authority is learned from childhood

Question 16

Dispositional explanations of obedience

Answer 16

Focus on internal characteristics (personality) that lead to a person to become more or less likely to obey

Question 17

What’s the authoritarian personality

Answer 17

A type of personality that Adorno argued was highly susceptible to obey authority
• submissive to those with a high social status
• dismissive of inferiors
- said to originate from childhood as a result of harsh parents

Question 18

Adorno’s research

Answer 18

Developed the f-scale (fascism scale) to investigate why people during the Holocaust obeyed so strongly
- High f scale score = authoritarian personality

Question 19

Resistance to social influence

Answer 19

To ability to withstand social pressures to conform to the majority of obey to the authority
- influenced by situational factors (environment) and dispositional factors (internal)

Question 20

Resistance to social influence - situational factors

Answer 20

Social support
- the presence of people who resist pressures to conform/ obey can help others to do the same

Question 21

Resistance to social influence - dispositional factors

Answer 21

Locus of control
•internals = believe that things happen to them are due to themselves (high LoC)
- more likely to resist pressures of social influence as they feel responsible for their own actions
•externals = believe things happen out of their control (low LoC)
- it’s a continuum = people constantly differ in the way they explain their successes and failures

Question 22

Minority influence

Answer 22

• form of social influence
• minority group tries to persuade others to adapt their beliefs, attitudes, behaviour
• the minority shaping the view of the majority
• leads to internationalisation or conversion

Question 23

Three processes that allow the minority to have an impact

Answer 23

• CONSISTENCY
  •synchronic = all saying the same thing
  •diachronic = same thing overtime
• COMMITMENT
  •show dedication and risk to the cause = majority are more likely to consider their view and they can clearly see how important it must be
• FLEXIBILITY
  • need to accept the possibility of compromise / adapt to enact smaller changes

Question 24

Moscovici’s study

Answer 24

• blue green slides
• groups where a minority of confederates consistently said the same colour, participants also answered the same wrong answer ~ 32% gave the same answer as the minority (confederates) at least once

Question 25

Research into conformity

Answer 25

Asch

Question 26

Research into conformity to social roles

Answer 26

Zimbardo

Question 27

Research into the effect of situational variables on obedience

Answer 27

Milgram

Question 28

Social psychological factors

Answer 28

Agentic state
Legitimacy of authority

Question 29

The authoritarian personality as an explanation of obedience

Answer 29

Adorno’s f-scale

Question 30

Explanations of resistance to social influence

Answer 30

Social support
Locus of control

Question 31

Social change

Answer 31

Where whole societies adapt new attitudes and beliefs, which then becomes widely accepted as the norm

Question 32

6 stages needed to encourage the majority to favour the minority and internalise their view

Answer 32

Drawing attention
Consistency
Deeper processing
Augmentation principle
The snowball effect
Social crytomnesia