Social Influence: Paper 1 Flashcards

Question

What is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 1

Legitimacy of authority refers to the belief that an authority figure has the right to exert influence over others. When an individual is perceived as an authority figure, people are more likely to obey their orders.

Answer 2

There is research support from Blass and Schmitt who showed a film of Milgram’s study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the ‘learner.’ They found that the students blamed the ‘experimenter’ rather than the participant and indicated that the responsibility was due to legitimate authority (the experimenter was top of the hierarchy and had legitimate authority) but also due to expert authority (because he was a scientist). This is significant because they recognised legitimate authority as the cause of obedience therefore supporting Milgram's explanation for obedience.

Answer 3

Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people are traditionally obedient to authority. For example, Kilham and Mann (1974) found that only 16% of Australian ppts went to the top of the voltage scale, whereas Mantell (1971) found that 85% of Germans did Therefore, in cultures where authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate, obedience is higher, which increases the validity of the explanation, suggesting legitimacy of authority does play a part in obedience.

Answer 4

However, other research shows that the behaviours of the Nazis cannot be explained in terms of authority and an agentic shift. Mandel(1998) described an incident involving the German Reserve Police Battilion 101 where men obeyed orders to shoot civilians despite the fact that they did not have direct orders to do so (they were told they could be assigned to other duties if they preferred.) Their behaviour suggests that they acted individually and did not engage in an agentic shift due to legitimacy of authority, as Milgram suggested Mandel goes on to argue that it offers an excuse or ‘alibi’ for evil behaviour. In his view, it is therefore offensive to survivors of the Holocaust to suggest that the Nazis were simply obeying orders and were victims themselves of situational factors beyond their control.

Answer 5

The agentic shift explanation also does not explain the findings from Holfing et al.’s study. The agentic shift explanation predicts that, as the nurses handed over responsibility to the doctor, they should have shown levels of anxiety similar to Milgram’s participants, as they understood their role in a destructive process. But his was not the case suggests they 𝒅𝒊𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏 . This suggests that, at best, agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience, limiting its application

Answer 6

A strength of the legitimacy of authority explanation is that it can help explain how obedience can lead to real-life war crimes. Kelman and Hamilton argue that the My Lai massacre can be understood in terms of the power hierarchy of the US Army. This is a strength because it provides an explanation for why people would perform such heinous activities despite experiencing a moral strain regarding their actions.

Answer 7

He provided support for the power of legitimate authority through a study of aviation accidents, where flight crew actions were a significant factor. He found an excessive dependence on the captain's authority and expertise (e.g. an officer claimed that although he saw the captain taking a risky approach he assumed that he knew what he was doing) These events and recordings support the impact of the presence of a legitimate authority figure, increasing the validity of the legitimate authority figure theory.

Answer 8

- Claim 'agentic shift' more likely in situation where individual experiences reduction in sense of personal control. - They found a reduction in personal control resulted in greater obedience to authority as well as bystander apathy and greater compliance with behavioural requests. - Therefore, the process of agentic shift is not confined to obedience to authority, decreasing the validity of the agentic state theory as an individual's sense of control could effect whether someone obeys authority or not.

Answer 9

The theory relies on an authority figure being present and so it therefore does not explain obedience to authority when an authority figure is distant (e.g. following the law when the police are not around) Thus it does not fully apply to real life scenarios and thus lacks mundane realism.

Answer 10

When a person or group of people influence the behaviours and beliefs of others. This is likely to lead to internalisation where both the public and private behaviour is changed by minority influence.

Answer 11

Moscovici – Asked participants if the slides were blue or green? Slides were all blue. Experiment of 172 women. Condition of 36 slides, two confederates said green for all of them Told participants were in a colour perception test Condition of 36 slides, two confederates said 24/36 slides were green. 1/3 of participants conformed at least once that the slide was green. 8.4% conformed to minority position.

Answer 12

Minorities must demonstrate consistency of their message (by repeating the same accuracy of their message) both over time through diachronic consistency and by maintaining the same messages between all members of the group (synchronic consistency). This is used to draw a cause to the situation by providing social proof of the situation through their message.

Answer 13

Sometimes minorities are prepared to engage in tasks in which they may suffer in order to draw attention to their views, demonstrating commitment to the cause. If activities come at personal risk, more impact as they demonstrate greater commitment, increases attention drawn to cause - augmentation principle.

Answer 14

Members of the minority have to be prepared to alter their point of view and accept and address counter-arguments, so they aren’t seen as rigid. To be effective, minorities have to strike a balance between consistency and flexibility.

Answer 15

A strength of this is that there is research support for consistency. Moscovici's 'blue slide, green slide' study showed that a consistent minority group had a greater effect on changing the views of others. Wood (1994) carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities who were being consistent were most influential. This suggests that being consistent is the minimum requirement for a minority trying to influence a majority.

Answer 16

Another limitation of minority influence research is that the tasks involved are artificial and may have been viewed as trivial and of little importance. This includes Moscovici's study. Research is therefore far removed from how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life. This means that findings are lacking in external validity and are limited in what they can tell us about how Minority influence works in real world social situations.

Answer 17

Another strength is evidence showing that a change in a majority's position does involve deeper processing. Martin et al. (2003) presented a message and measured the participants' agreement. One group of participants heard a minority group agree with the initial view, while another group heard a majority agree with the view. People were less willing to change if they had listened to a minority group than if they had listened to a majority. This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect.

Answer 18

However, research studies make clear distinctions between the majority and minority. Doing this in a controlled way is a strength. But real life situations are more complicated. In the real world, majorities have more power and a higher status than minorities. Minorities are very committed to their cause; this is because they face a very hostile opposition and may even partake in activities that come at a personal risk to draw attention to their cause (augmentation principle). Therefore, Martin et al's findings are very limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in real world situations.

Answer 19

Also, Moscovici (1969) used only female students as participants (i.e., an unrepresentative sample ), so it would be wrong to generalize his result to all people – they only tell us about the behavior of female students. Also, females are often considered to be more conformist than males. Therefore, there might be a gender difference in the way that males and females respond to minority influence.

Answer 20

In Moscovici et al's study, agreement with the minority was very low, about 8%. This suggests that minority influence is rare. But when participants wrote their answers down privately, they were more likely to agree with the minority view. This shows that people may be reluctant to admit their ‘conversion’ publically and thus provides support for Moscovici’s minority influence process as this demonstrates internalisation took place.

Answer 21

Bashir et al – people resist social change even when they believe it is necessary because they associate minority beliefs with negative stereotypes. This is a weakness of minority influence as stereotypes can prevent minority views from being majority views. For example, Bashir investigated why ppl reject the idea of being environmentally conscious and found that people want to be labelled as 'weird' or 'tree-huggers'. This suggests that to be effective in bringing about change, minority groups should avoid behaving in ways that reinforce negative stereotypes about themselves as this will always put off the majority from supporting them

Answer 22

Used groups of three participants: one confederate in two conditions. 1st Condition: Minority shows inflexibility by arguing for a low level of compensation for the victim in the case of an imaginary ski lift accident, and does not change from that level. 2nd Condition: Confederate shows flexibility by raising his offer slightly. In the second condition (flexible) the majority was much likely to lower the compensation level closer to the confederate than the inflexible condition.

Answer 23

As this was an experimental situation with the participants aware that the ski lift victim was not real, and that no money would be paid, we may question the external validity of this experiment.

Answer 24

1. Drawing Attention Attention is drawn to the situation that needs to be changed by providing social proof of the situation. 2. Consistency Keeping the same accuracy of message and intent of how the situation needs to be changed. 3. Deeper Processing Members of the majority group start to process the new information they received more deeply, and this leads to a process of conversion where the new beliefs become a part of their own belief system through internalisation. 4. The Augmentation Principle Minorities may partake in activities that come at a personal risk, drawing more attention towards the cause as minorities demonstrate greater commitment to their cause. 5. The Snowball Effect Minority starts to influence the majourity largely as more people join the social movement and are as a result ‘converted’. As more people join, the rate of conversation grows faster. Eventually, growing bigger by size until suddenly the minority becomes the majority and the majority becomes the minority. 6. Social Cryptomnesia Eventually, people fail to remember how a change has occurred although they know a change has happened in society.

Answer 25

Nolan et al investigated whether social influence processes led to a reduction in energy consumption in a community. They hung messages on the front doors of houses in California every week for one month. The key message was that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage. Nolan et al. found significant decreases in energy usage in the first group. This is a strength because it shows that conformity can lead to social change through the operation of normative social influence.

Answer 26

Bashir et al – people resist social change even when they believe it is necessary because they associate minority beliefs with negative stereotypes. This is a weakness of social change as stereotypes can prevent minority views from being majority views. For example, Bashir investigated why ppl reject the idea of being environmentally conscious and found that people want to be labelled as 'weird' or 'tree-huggers'. This suggests that to be effective in bringing about change, minority groups should avoid behaving in ways that reinforce negative stereotypes about themselves as this will always put off the majority from supporting them

Answer 27

There is supporting evidence for the augmentation principle and the three conditions of minority influence. This is shown by the suffragettes who won the right to vote after 50 years. They used consistency as it took a long time for them to gain their rights. They also used commitment as there were high risks involved with sharing their views like going to prison. This meant their view was taken more seriously (the augmentation principle). , thus showing the real-life application of these processes. Despite this, minority influence is more likely to create opportunity for change, rather than change itself. If there are risks or consequences involved then people do not change their public behaviour, and gradually commit. Therefore, minority influence is not always effective

Answer 28

It has been argued by Nemeth (1986) that minority influence is only indirectly effective in bringing about social change. For example, it's taken decades for attitudes against drink-driving & smoking to shift. This means that social change processes occur very slowly. Changes are indirect because the majority is influenced on matters only related to the issue on hand, and not the central issue. Changes are delayed because the effects may not be seen for some time Therefore, using minority influence to explain social change is limited because it shows that effects are fragile and its role in social influence are narrow.

Answer 29

While social norms interventions have shown positive results in a number of different settings they also have their limitations. -DeJong et al. (2009) tested the effectiveness of social norms marketing campaigns to drive down alcohol use among students across 14 college sites. Despite receiving normative information that corrected their misconceptions of subjective drinking norms, students in the social norms condition did not report lower self-reported alcohol consumption as a result of the campaign. -It appears, therefore that not all social norms interventions are able to produce social change. In fact, social norms intervention can sometimes have the opposite effect to what was intended, changing some people’s constructive behaviour to destructive behaviour. For example, Schultzet al. (2007) found a social norms campaign was effective in lowering heavy electricity users’ consumption, but increased consumption in those originally using less. Therefore social norms interventions can produce a ‘boomerang effect’, which is clearly not desirable.

Answer 30

If a minority is perceived to be deviant in the eyes of majority then the majority will be more focused on the fact that the minority is 'deviant' rather than the actual message they're trying to portray, which may decrease support for their cause. Therefore the existence of deviance in society limits the influence that the minority has on the majority in social change processes.

Answer 31

Role of deeper processing - Mackie does not agree that minority influence converts individuals to that view, and that majority influence creates deeper processing when they disagree with the minority and their views. This means that a central part of minority influence is challenged and reduces its validity of the minority causing social change.

Answer 32

Social support can help someone resist against conformity. This is because the pressure to conform can be reduced, if there are others who do not conform. The person who does not conform does not have to be right, as they still allow the observer to act freely of their own consience.

Answer 33

Social support for obedience can help resistance obedience. The pressure to obey can be reduced if there are other people who are disobedient. While an individual may not follow the disobedient person’s behaviour, they are more encouraged to act upon their own conscience.

Answer 34

- The degree to which an individual believes they are in control of their live. - People with an internal locus of control believe that they are more in control of factors within their life such as their performance in tests. - People with an external locus of control believe that they are not in control of factors within their life such as having more money.

Answer 35

- People with an internal locus of control tend to resistance social influence more than people with an external locus of control. - This is because people with an internal locus of control believe they are more responsible for their decisions and outcomes and therefore are less likely to conform to social norms and pressures. - Therefore, they are more likely to rely on their own beliefs and judgements than following the crowd.

Answer 36

Research evidence supports the link between LOC and resistance to obedience. Holland repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured whether participants were internals or externals. He found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level (i.e. they showed some resistance) whereas only 23% of externals did not continue. In other words internals showed greater resistance to authority. Research support of this nature increases the validity of the LOC explanation and our confidence that it can explain resistance.

Answer 37

Locus of control only comes into play in new situations. It has very little influence over our behaviour in familiar situations where our previous experiences based on our schema will always be more important. It means that people who have conformed or obeyed in specific situations in the past are likely to do so again, even if they have a high internal locus of control. Low external validity as not generalisable all real life situations. Not a credible explanation to explain resistance .

Answer 38

Twenge et al analysed data of LOC studies over a 40-year period. Showed people have become more resistant to obedience but also more external. Based on the theory, internal people are more likely to be resistant to obedience and therefore, you would expect people to become more internal. This challenges the link between internal LOC and increasing resistant behaviour.

Answer 39

Allen and Levine (1917) found that conformity decreased when there was one dissenter in an Asch style study even if the confederate wore thick glasses and said they had difficulty with vision, thus supporting the view that resistance is not just motivated by following what someone else is doing but it enables someone to be free from group pressure. This increases the validity of research into resistance to social influence as it suggests the importance of the role of dissenting participants even if the peer less reliable as it enables the participant to independently behave.

Answer 40

Gamson et al (1982) conducted a study where participants were in groups and had to produce evidence that would be used to help a oil company run a smear campaign found 29 out of 33 (88%) rebelled, higher results than Milgram. This shows that peer support links to greater resistance to obedience as their social support made them feel as if they could withstand the authority figure.

Answer 41

- Albrecht et al (2008) evaluated an 8 week program designed to help pregnant teens resist peer pressure to smoke and found that when social support was provided by a slightly older buddy, the teens were significantly less likely to smoke (resist peer pressure) than a control group. - This shows that social support can help young people resist social influences in the real world, therefore it has strong practical applications in the real world. ************************************************************************* - Furthermore, stopping pregnant teens form engaging in dangerous and damaging behaviour during pregnancy means that the likelihood of giving birth to a baby with health problems is also reduced. - This means that healthcare providers, that are often stretched to capacity, will not have to use resources on medical issues that could have been prevented in advance and will be able to focus their attention on people who are in need of care for reasons that are beyond their control. - Therefore this research has other important and beneficial implications on other areas of society such as the economy.

Answer 42

Rosenstrasse Protest: A Group of German Women in 1943 protested for the Gestapo to release their Jewish Husbands and Children, to which they were released. Milgram found that the presence of disobedient peers gave the ppts confidence and courage to resist orders.

Answer 43

Locus of control was found to be related to normative social influence. Spector measured LOC and NSI and ISI with 151 undergraduate students. He found a correlation between LOC + NSI but not for ISI, most importantly, finding that externals conformed more, showing that internals are more likely to resist social influence (in this occasion, normative social influence)

Answer 44

E.g. More able to resistance coercion Hutchins and Etsey found that in a simulated prisoner of war camp situation, internals were better able to resistance attempts of an interrogator to gain info. The more intense the pressure of the interrogator was, the greater the difference between the internal and external's ability to resist coercion.

Answer 45

Inspired by Eichmann, a Nazi officer (who played a main role in the holocaust) said he was ‘only following orders’. He wanted to see if this was true. He wanted to find out if ordinary American citizens would obey an unjust order from an authority figure and inflict pain on another person because they were instructed to

Answer 46

The teacher and the learner were put into two separate rooms The learner is strapped to a chair with electrodes. After he has learned a list of word pairs given him to learn, the "teacher" tests him by naming a word and asking the learner to recall its partner/pair from a list of four possible choices. The teacher is told to administer an electric shock every time the learner makes a mistake, increasing the level of shock each time. There were 30 switches on the shock generator marked from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 (danger – severe shock). The Experimenter had a set of pre-scripted “prods” that were to be said if the Teacher questioned any of the orders. If all four prods had to be used, the observation would stop. It also stopped if the Learner got up and left or reached 450V.

Answer 47

65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e., teachers) continued to the highest level of 450 volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts. Most participants listened to the orders given from the experimenter (who appeared to be a highly authoritative figure).

Answer 48

Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being.

Answer 49

His findings have been replicated in other cultures and are supportive of Milgram’s Experiment. For example, Miranda et al. found an obedience rate of over 90% amongst Spanish students. This suggests that Milgram’s conclusions about obedience are also valid across cultures and apply to females too rather than just American males. However, Smith and Bond argue that most replications have taken place in Western, developed societies. As in these countries there is little cultural difference between the USA so it would be difficult to conclude that Milgram’s findings, even though it is backed up by variations and further replications, apply to people everywhere.

Answer 50

Milgram’s study has been criticised for lacking ecological validity. Milgram tested obedience in a laboratory, which is very different to real-life situations of obedience, where people are often asked to follow more subtle instructions, rather than administering electric shocks. As a result, we are unable to generalise his findings to real life situations of obedience and cannot conclude that people would obey less severe instructions in the same way

Answer 51

Milgram’s research lacked population validity. Milgram used a bias sample of 40 male volunteers, which means we are unable to generalise the results to other populations, in particular females, and cannot conclude if female participants would respond in a similar way

Answer 52

Orne and Holland criticized Milgram's study, pointing out that many participants realized the experiment was fake. For example, when the experimenter was replaced by a "member of the public," it became evident to some participants that the situation was artificial. This poses a limitation to all of Milgram's studies because it's unclear if the results reflect genuine obedience or if participants saw through the deception and acted accordingly.

Answer 53

- This is a strength because Milgram's experiment was conducted in an artificial laboratory and so was less likely to be affected by extraneous variables, e.g. distractions, noise, etc. - This increases the internal validity of the experiment as Milgram was able to determine whether the IV (authority figure) was causing the DV (obedience) to change. - Causal conclusions can therefore be drawn from his experiment. - Furthermore, as the experiment investigated a causal relationship under controlled conditions it can be easily replicated to check if the same results occur, and therefore this experiment is high in reliability

Answer 54

The volunteer sampling method means that participants are self-selected. This is a limitation because this means that the participants are typically more helpful and confident as they are willing to take part in the study so the sample could have been biased to reflect personality types rather than measuring obedience. However, Milgram used ranges of ages and professions so this would have allowed for some individual stance

Answer 55

However, benefit of the research is that findings have helped to reduce prejudice against Germans that had been strong in the post war years, and increased our understanding of human behaviour in showing us that in obedience to authority human behaviour is universal and influenced heavily by situational factors.

Answer 56

Holfing et al demonstrated that 21 out of 22 nurses in a real hospital ward would obey orders over the phone from a 'Dr Smith' to give 20mg of an unfamillar drug at twice the daily maximum. Shows that people will listen to the order of an authority figure, even if they may disagree with the order.

Answer 57

As this study was conducted in real world settings, it could be claimed to have higher mundane realism (familiar task) and ecological validity (done at a normal location in day to day life)

Answer 58

One factor shown by Milgram to affect obedience levels is proximity to the authority figure. This means that the closer people were to the authority figure giving orders, which was Milgram, the more likely they were to obey these given orders. For example, Milgram found out that when the authority figure had been in the same room as the participant, obedience levels rose up drastically higher compared to when the authority figure was in a different location or had communicated through a telephone.

Answer 59

The role of the experimenter was then taken over by an ‘ordinary member of the public’ ( a confederate) in everyday clothes rather than a lab coat. The obedience level dropped to 20%.

Answer 60

The experiment was moved to a set of run down offices rather than the impressive Yale University. Obedience dropped to 47.5% from 65%. This suggests that status of location affects obedience as participants were more likely to obey a researcher who appeared to be affiliated with a prestigious institution and thus believe to be a legitimate authority figure.

Answer 61

A strength of Milgram's experiments is the high level of control of variations. This is because he altered one variable at a time to see what effect it would have on the level of obedience. All other procedures and variables are kept the same and repeated again and again, to ensure standardisation. This suggests that the results have high internal validity and ensures the results are not one off, so is reliable.

Answer 62

Bickman had three confederates dress in three different outfits – jacket and tie, a milkman’s outfit, and a security guard’s uniform. The confederates stood in the street and gave people who were passing by orders such as picking up litter. Results found that people were twice as likely to obey the assistant dressed as a security guard than the one dressed in jacket and tie. This supports Milgram’s conclusion that a uniform demonstrates the authority of its wearer and is a situational factor likely to increase obedience.

Answer 63

This supports Milgram's original research that some uniforms have more legitimate authority and as a field experiment can be argued to be higher in external validity and avoid demand characteristics.

Answer 64

A weakness is that Milgram’s research is not relevant to real life atrocities. Mandel (1998) claims that the situational factors do not occur in real life. Despite the presence of factors which would increase defiance, very few people refused to take part in the mass killings of Jews in Poland. This suggests that situational factors are not the only factor that affects obedience.

Answer 65

A strength of Milgram’s study is the high reliability. It has high levels of control, therefore being replicated cross culturally, for example by Le Jeu de la Mort. He found that 85% of participants were willing to give lethal shocks to an unconscious man(confederate), whilst being cheered on by a presenter and TV audience. This shows that the results can be found all over the world, thus having universality. Further research support comes from Miranda et al. found an obedience rate of over 90% amongst Spanish students. This suggests that Milgram’s conclusions about obedience are also valid across cultures and apply to females too rather than just American males. However, Smith and Bond argue that most replications have taken place in Western, developed societies. As in these countries there is little cultural difference between the USA so it would be difficult to conclude that Milgram’s findings, even though it is backed up by variations and further replications, apply to people everywhere.

Answer 66

In addition, it has high external validity, being further supported by Hofling’s study. He found that 95% of nurses were willing to obey a doctor’s order over the phone, to double a patient’s medication, despite the bottle recommending less. This shows that everyday individuals are susceptible to obeying authority figures, and thus the explanation has real world application

Answer 67

Orne and Holland criticized Milgram's study, pointing out that many participants realized the experiment was fake. For example, when the experimenter was replaced by a "member of the public," it became evident to some participants that the situation was artificial. This poses a limitation to all of Milgram's studies because it's unclear if the results reflect genuine obedience or if participants saw through the deception and acted accordingly.

Answer 68

They wanted to investigate whether it is an individual's personality or the situation they are in that influences a person's behaviour when given a social role.

Answer 69

- They were very serious about treating the experiment as a simulation. They set up a basement at Stanford, making it look like a real prison rather than a mock prison. They were first arrested in public by the local police and then deindividualized (stripped off their identities) This was done by them being: taken into prison, booked, fingerprinted, stop-searched and having the guards refer to the prisoners by numbers rather than their names. - The guards were given authority and were allowed to behave however they wanted towards the prisoner group. However, they had to follow two rules; they couldn't hit them or put prisoners in solitary confinement for more than an hour.

Answer 70

- Individuals listen and follow the social roles demanded of a situation, even when these social roles go against a person’s moral beliefs about what is right and wrong about their personal behaviour. - The guards used psychological and physical abuse such as sleep deprivation to punish and tyrannize the prisoners throughout the study.

Answer 71

- Individuals listen and follow the social roles demanded of a situation, even when these social roles go against a person’s moral beliefs about what is right and wrong about their personal behaviour.

Answer 72

A strength of Zimbardo’s study is that the variables have been highly controlled. For example, Zimbardo controlled for emotional stability because all participants were rated as emotionally stable before the experiment and randomly assigned to either the prisoner or guard group This helped to rule out individual differences as an explanation of group differences (guards vs. prisoners) Thus, any differences in behaviour are due to social roles, not individual differences. This increases the validity of the study as it increases our confidence in the cause-and-effect relationship between social roles and behaviour

Answer 73

A weakness of the study is that Zimbardo may have exaggerated the influence of the situation on behaviour. Zimbardo later noted that only about a third of the guards behaved in a brutal manner towards prisoners. The remaining guards helped the prisoners or were fair to the prisoners. The situation may have a less significant effect than what Zimbardo suggested because not all the guards were affected by the situational influences. This suggests that situational pressures to conform are moderated by personality factors. Therefore, reducing the validity of Zimbardo’s belief that situational factors are a strong in conformity to social roles.

Answer 74

Banuazizi and Mohavedi argued that participants were role-playing rather than genuinely conforming to roles. Their performances were based on stereotypes of how guards and prisoners are supposed to behave. For example, one guard claimed he based his role on a violent character in Cool Hand Luke. However, Zimbardo collected qualitative data that showed that 90% of conversations were about prison life which suggests that the situation was real for the participants, adding internal validity.

Answer 75

One limitation of the Standford Prison Experiment is that an attempt to replicate the experiment has actually resulted in contradictory research findings that reject Zimbardo’s. Reicher & Haslam attempted to recreate the experiment in 2006 however their findings differed to Zimbardo's; prisoners eventually controlled mock prison & harassed & disobeyed guards. Researchers used Tajfel’s social identity theory to explain these findings suggesting that guards failed to develop a shared social identity while the prisoners did. This could explain how the prisoners managed to take over, harass and disobey the guards. Therefore, these findings suggest that dispositional factors such as personality also play a part in conforming to social roles; showing not everyone is willing to instantly conform to their social roles thus is a limitation as it indicates that Zimbardo’s experiment is not reliable as it couldn't be recreated.

Answer 76

The number of ethical issues with the study led to the formal recognition or ethical guidelines so that future studies were safer and less harmful to participants due to legally bound rules. This demonstrates the practical application of an increased understanding of the mechanisms of conformity and the variables which affect this.

Answer 77

A strength of the study is that there is real life application to support that conformity to social roles does occur in everyday life. One example is the torture of Israel soldiers by American soldiers when they were prisoners of war in Abu Ghraib this indicates that a uniform and perceived authority can make normal people do abnormal things. Zimbardo’s study therefore has been useful in advising the way those who have some form of authority like the police, or the army should be controlled and how their position of power can be structured so that they do not do things that they wouldn’t otherwise. For example, much of the brutality in the Zimbardo experiment was caused by the guards feeling anonymous due to their uniform and glasses etc meaning that they could commit acts and not feel entirely responsible.

Answer 78

One strength of the study is that it has altered the way US prisons are run. For instance, juveniles (young prisoners) accused of federal crimes such as armed robbery are no longer housed before their trial with adult prisoners due to the risk of violence against them.

Answer 79

One limitation is that the study has an ethnocentric bias as the study is carried out in the USA (an individualistic culture) and therefore it may not generalise to collectivist cultures. For example, Bond and Smith (1996) found that studies conducted in collectivist cultures (e.g. China) gave higher conformity rates because they are more orientated to group needs. Therefore, conformity rates are not universal, and we cannot assume that findings from an individualistic culture can apply equally to collectivist cultures as this would make the study guilty of an imposed etic, and thus this study lacks population validity.

Answer 80

Solomon Asch conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.

Answer 81

- Using a line judgement task, Asch put a naiive participant in a room with seven confederates/stooges. - The confederates had agreed in advance what their responses would be when presented with the line task. - The real participant did not know this and was led to believe that the other seven confederates/stooges were also real participants like themselves.

Answer 82

- Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view. - On average, about one third (32%) of the participants who were placed in this situation went along and conformed with the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials. - Over the 12 critical trials, about 75% of participants conformed at least once, and 25% of participants never conformed.

Answer 83

People conform for two main reasons: - because they want to fit in with the group (normative influence) - because they believe the group is better informed than they are (informational influence).

Answer 84

Asch (1956) found that group size influenced whether subjects conformed. The bigger the majority group (no of confederates), the more people conformed, but only up to a certain point. With one other person (i.e., confederate) in the group conformity was 3%, with two others it increased to 13%, and with three or more it was 32% (or 1/3).

Answer 85

When the (comparison) lines (e.g., A, B, C) were made more similar in length it was harder to judge the correct answer and conformity increased. When we are uncertain, it seems we look to others for confirmation (informational social influence). The more difficult the task, the greater the conformity.

Answer 86

A strength of Asch's methodology is that he conducted a controlled laboratory experiment. This meant that Asch could control variables in the experiment, for example he could manipulate the group size and where the participant sat. He was able to establish cause and effect and show that the size of the group affected how likely it was that the participant would conform to the majority. However, laboratory experiments can be criticised for not reflecting real life, for example Asch's research was conducted in a highly controlled environment and does not reflect how conformity affects people in the real world. This could have led to demand characteristics coming into play as participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have picked up the cues/clues and gone along with what they thought the investigation was about. Also, Asch asked his participants to judge the length of lines, which is a rather trivial and artificial task so there was no reason not to conform. This means that the findings do not tell us about conformity in everyday situations therefore we need to be careful when generalising the findings to real life situations where the consequences are more important, for example when sitting on a jury.

Answer 87

It is possible that these findings are unique because the research took place in a particular period of history in the USA when conformity was high and valued (McCarthyism) and therefore it made sense to conform to established social norms. People might be less likely to conform in subsequent decades. Perrin & Spencer replicated Asch's study in England in the 1980s with science and engineering students and found only one student conformed on 396 trials. However, because these were engineering students, they may have felt more confident about their ability to estimate line length than Asch's original sample. This is still a limitation though because it shows that conformity is not a fundamental feature of human behaviour as it appears not to be consistent across situations and time, thus questioning the temporal validity and reliability of Asch's research into conformity

Answer 88

Asch's participants were deceived, because they were misled about key aspects of the experimental procedures, for example, they thought the other participants involved in the group task were genuine participants like themselves, when in fact they were confederates. As a result, lack of informed consent was an issue as participants did not know the true nature of the study, although researchers would argue that deception was necessary in this experiment to avoid demand characteristics. Overall, the main benefit of Asch’s experiment was that it has highlighted peoples' susceptibility to group conformity and has taught ethic committees about how the ethical costs of psychological research should be weighed against the benefits for society, helping improve future psychological research so that future studies minimise harm to participants and the wider society

Answer 89

One problem with Asch's research is that he did not take cultural differences into account. The participants in Asch's study were all from the United States, an individualistic culture where people are more concerned with themselves than the wider social group they belong to (and so are less likely to conform). Bond and Smith (1996) found that studies conducted in collectivist cultures (e.g. China) gave higher conformity rates because they are more orientated to group needs and thus limits his study as it is based on an imposed etic. Moreover, only men were tested by Asch. Other research (e.g. Neto 1995) suggests that women are more conformist than men because they are more concerned about social relationships. This is a limitation because his research appears to have issues of androcentrism and imposed etic as he is pushing the ideas of an individualist male sample onto other genders and cultures.

Answer 90

For example, Asch had his ppts answer out loud in a group of strangers and found that conformity dropped to 12.5% when ppts wrote their answers down. Williams and Sogon found that conformity was higher when the majority of the group were friends rather than strangers (which could be due to the greater need to impress their friends due to affiliation. Therefore, we cannot generalise Asch's findings to all situations as people react differently in different contexts.

Answer 91

Lucas et al (2006) found that participants with high self-efficacy were more independent than participants with low self-efficacy. This demonstrates that confidence may be related to conformity. Thus, individual-level factors (such as self-efficacy) interact with situational factors and thus limits Asch’s research into conformity as Asch failed to investigate how individual variables affects conformity.

Social Influence: Paper 1 Flashcards

(115 cards)