Social Influence (paper 1) Flashcards

Question

What was Milgram’s procedure for his original study?

Answer 1

-40 male participants from range of occupations and backgrounds, all volunteers, for punishment+learning -meet with experimenter and learner (both confederates) -told they were randomly assigned role of teacher or learner -watched learner be strapped to electric visor and was given sample electric shock then learner is hidden -learner gave premeditated answers -teacher told to give a shock when learner answers wrong and each time to increase voltage -learners prerecorded screams become louder and more dramatic then silent -if teacher tried to stop experiment the experiment would respond with prods to continue

Answer 2

-all real participants went to at 300 volts and 65% went to full 450 volts -participant showed signs of extreme stress -the findings were different than expected (before the study he asked students to predict behaviour who said no mire then 3% would go to 450)

Answer 3

-Under the right circumstances ordinary people will obey unjust orders -The Germans are not different to other people from different countries.

Answer 4

-Generalisable; lacks population validity, only tests male Americans -Reliability; obedience may have changed overtime, but results has been repeated (Le Jeu de la Mort) -Applicability; confirms theories of the Germans in WW2 -Validity; lacks ecological validity as its not a common real life scenario -Ethical; participant was mislead in a way that could cause psychological harm but nobody was physically hurt

Answer 5

-documentary about reality TV -participants believed that they were contestants in a pilot episode for a new game show -They were paid to give (fake) electric shocks, when ordered to by the presenter, to other participants (who were actually confederates) -80% of participants delivered the max shock of 460 volts -Their behaviour was almost identical to that of Milgram's participants.

Answer 6

-Features of an environment that impact the degree to which individuals obey -Proximity; the physical distance of an authority figure to the person they are giving an order to (also refers to the closeness of the person carrying out an order to their "victim") -location; the place where an order is issued (the status of prestige of the place can impact on obedience eg lab) -uniform; the clothes an authority figure wears that symbolise their position of authority

Answer 7

-baseline (OG) study at Yale university; 65% -change location to run down office building; 47.5% (Prestigious environment gives experimenter authority and legitimacy so obedience was expected so lesser environment had lower perceived scientific nature) -change proximity so student and teacher are in same room; 40% -change proximity so teacher forces students hand on shock plate; 30% (Rate decreases as they ate more aware that they are causing harm to others) -change proximity so experiment gives orders over phone; 20.5% (Rate decreases as authority figure being further lowers desire to obey) -change uniform so experimenter played by ‘member of the public’ in casual clothes; 20% (Uniform is widely recognised symbol of authority so someone without uniform has less right to obedience)

Answer 8

1) Situational Variables (proximity, location, uniform) 2) Legitimacy of Authority 3) Agentic State 4) Authoritarian Personality -Situational explanations: *external characteristics* to do with a situation explains obedience -Social-psychological explanations: the *influence that other people have* on an individual explains obedience -Dispositional explanations: *internal characteristics* of an individual explains obedience

Answer 9

-people are more likely to *obey people who they perceive to have authority* over them. -authority is justified by the individual's position of power within a *social hierarchy* (eg teacher or police) -we are taught to recognise the value of obedience to an authority figure from a young age as it helps to keep stability in society -People willingly give up some of their independence and hand over control of their behaviour to people they trust to exercise authority appropriately -However, problems arise when legitimate authority becomes destructive ie cruel or unjust

Answer 10

-individuals feel responsible for own actions based of own principles in the autonomous state -agentic shift occurs when a person goes fro autonomous state to agentic state -agentic state is a mental state where an individual *feels no personal responsibility over their actions* as they believe themselves to be acting for an authority figure -individual gives up free will, hands responsibility to authority figure. They can *ignore their conscience and allows them to obey orders from figure* -when individual experiences high anxiety (moral strain), they know what they’re doing is wrong but feel powerless against figure -Milgram argues that there are aspects of situations where agent can minimise/ignore the damaging effects if their behaviour (binding factors) such as victim blaming or denying the damage done to victims

Answer 11

-one variation of his experiment an additional confederate *administered the electric shocks on behalf of the teacher* -*percentage who reached the full 450 volts rose from 65% to 92.5%*. -highlights the power of shifting responsibility (agentic shift), these participants shifted their responsibility on to person administering the shocks and continued obeying orders as they *felt less responsible* -the ability to enter an agentic state increases the level of obedience, as the level of personal responsibility decreases.

Answer 12

-study of more than *2000 middle class white Americans* and their *unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups* -primarily done *using the f scale* (fascist)

Answer 13

-high scores on the F-scale identified with 'strong' people -were generally disrespectful/*had a hatred for the 'weak'* -were *very conscious of their own and others' status* -showed *excessive respect and submission* to those of higher status. -*had distinctive stereotypes* and saw things as very black and white with no grey areas.

Answer 14

-especially *obedient to authority* -Extreme *respect for authority* -*Hatred for* people they perceive as having *inferior social status* -*Traditional attitude* (sex/race/gender) -View society as going downhill (think we *need strong and powerful leaders* to enforce traditional values) -Their *outlook is inflexible* (black or white) and they are very uncomfortable with uncertainty

Answer 15

harsh parenting such as: -Extremely strict discipline -Expectation of complete loyalty -Impossibly high standards -Severe criticism of perceived failures -Conditional love These create resentment/hostility in the child. The fears and anger are displaced onto people who are weaker. This explains the obedience to higher authority and hated for the socially inferior/different

Answer 16

-*social support* (situational factor) -*locus of control* (dispositional factor) Resistance of social influence is the ability to withstand social pressure to conform or to obey orders

Answer 17

-having *an ally can build confidence*and allows individual to remain independent (act on own conscience) -it *breaks unanimity of the group* so fear of ridicule decreases (*avoids NSI*) -individuals who have *support for their view* are more likely to disobey authority figures as it provides a *model of disobedience* Relates to -variant of Asch’s study on unanimity (but if non conforming confederate starts to conform so does participant) -variant of Milgram’s study where two confederates join participant as teachers, they refuse to go on at some point. Participants to continue to full 450 volts decreases to 10%

Answer 18

The degree of *control an individual feels they have in their own life* -measured in internal and external loc -the continuum from high internal loc to high external loc, with low internal/external lying in between Internals -*what occurs to them is largely controlled by themselves* -*more likely to resist social influence* -take more responsibility for actions -more self confident, achievement oriented, and intelligent Externals -believe *things happen outside of their control*

Answer 19

-when one/a small group influence the beliefs, attitudes and behaviours of others -different from conformity (thats when majority is influencing) -minority influence leads to internalisation -in order for their views to be influential the minority must be consistent (synchronic agreement and constant belief overtime draws attention), committed (engage in extreme activities for attention and put selves at risk for view) and flexible (be prepared to adapt and compromise)

Answer 20

1) they *draw attention to an issue* 2) they are *influential due to the consistency* of their position 3)this *causes deeper processing of the issue*, people start *questioning their belief* of the status quo 4) this leads to the *augmentation principle* by others as *minority is willing to suffer for their views* 5) this results in *the snowball effect* and more and more people consider the issue 6) comes to critical mass *when minority view is now majority* leads to *social cryptomnesia* when people know that there has been social change but not how it occurred

Answer 21

Conformity -dissent leads to change as by breaking power of majority, dissenters encourage others to dissent -environmental/health campaigns appeal to NSI by saying what others are doing to get others to so it to -conforming to new norms via compliance as they want to fit in (NSI) Obedience -disobedient models lead to others disobeying as well -process of gradual commitment, obey a small instruction and it becomes harder to resist a bigger one People drift into a new behaviour -new social norm may have laws and rules put in place to ensure people obey new attitudes and behaviours

Social Influence (paper 1) Flashcards

(45 cards)