social influence gaps Flashcards
Agentic state
Agency theory says that people will obey an authority when they believe that the authority will take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
Milgram showing agentic state
when participants were reminded that they had responsibility for their own actions, almost none of them were prepared to obey. In contrast, many participants who were refusing to go on did so if the experimenter said that he would take responsibility’.
and a variation of Milgram’s study where participants could instruct an assistant (confederate) to press the switches. In this condition 92.5% shocked to the maximum 450 volts. This shows when there is less personal responsibility obedience increases.
Limitations of Agentic state
Cannot explain Nazi behavior – Mandel described how the German Police Reserve shot civilians in a small Polish town even though they were not directly ordered to and were told they could be assigned to other duties – Challenges agentic state as they were not powerless to obey.
Legitimacy of Authority Figure
People tend to obey others if they recognise their authority as morally right and / or legally based
This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school and workplace.
If an authority figure’s commands are potentially harmful, for it to be perceived as legitimate they must occur within some type of institutional structure (e.g. a university or the military).
Authoritarian personality
authoritarian personality, i.e. a person who favours an authoritarian social system and, admires obedience to authority figures.
One of the various characteristics of the authoritarian personality was that the individual is hostile to those who are of inferior status, but obedient of people with high status.
Adorno A01:
investigated 2000 middle class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups using the F-scale to measure Authoritarian personality
Adorno A03: Germany
Millions of individuals in Germany displayed obedient behavior but didn’t have the same personality, it is unlikely that the majority of Germany’s population possessed an authoritarian personality – An alternative explanation like social identity theory (people identify with groups they are apart with and discriminate against ones they are not) may be more realistic.
Adorno A03: sample
Adorno used a biased sample – Only used 2000 middle class white Americans who are more likely to have an Authoritarian personality due to demographics and the time of the study – Research lacks population validity and historical validity, so conclusions cannot be generalised to people outside the sample.
Resistance to social influence: social support Asch
In one of Asch’s experimental variations he showed that the presence of a dissident (a confederate who did not conform) led to a decrease in the conformity levels in true participants.
This is thought to be because the presence of a dissident gave the true participant social support and made them feel more confident in their own decision and more confident in rejecting the majority position.
social support Milgram
Social support also decreases obedience to authority. In a variation of Milgram’ study two other participants (confederates) were also teachers but refused to obey. Confederate 1 stopped at 150 volts and confederate 2 stopped at 210 volts. The presence of others who are seen to disobey the authority figure reduced the level of obedience to 10%.
Resistance to social influence: Locus of control
The term ‘Locus of control’ refers to how much control a person feels they have in their own behavior. A person can either have an internal locus of control or an external locus of control.
There is a continuum, with most people lying in between.
Internal locus of control
People with a high internal locus of control perceive (see) themselves as having a great deal of personal control over their behavior and are therefore more likely to take responsibility for the way they behave. For example, I did well on the exams because I revised extremely hard. So they are less likely to obey or conform
Internal locus of control
In contrast a person with a high external locus of control perceive their behaviors as being a result of external influences or luck – e.g. I did well on the test because it was easy
