social influence

• asch's 3 variables of conformity?

  1. group size
  2. task difficulty
  3. unaniminity
• asch's procedure?

  1. lab experiment with 123 male pps
  2. all pps other than one naive pps were confederates
  3. they were shwon a stimulus line and different length lines and told to match A B or C to the stimulus
  4. confederates said the wrong answer and asch measured the conformity of the naive pps
• asch's results


  -pps conformed on an average of 33% to wrong answers just because confederates said them

  -75% said they conformed to avoid rejection
• asch variable results?

  1. group size increases, so does conformity
  2. task difficulty increases, so does conformity
  3. unaniminity increases, conformity decreases
• strengths of asch?

  1. supporting evidence: lucas et al- hard and easy maths questions and conforming when they got harder
  2. controlled and artificial- scientific to increase reliability
• weaknesses of asch?

  1. as the task was artificial, more likely for demand characteristics
  2. theres only male participants so cant generalise- NETO says women are more likely to conform and are N affiliators
• 3 situational variables affecting obedience?

  1. uniform
  2. location
  3. proximity
• situational variable- uniform?


  • uniform is a symbol of legitimate authority
  • milgram swapped the experimenter, whose in a lab coat, with a random person in normal clothes
  • obedience dropped to 20%
• situational variable- location

  -theres legitimate authority in certain settings

  -milgram did the study in a run-down building instead of university and obedience dropped to 47.5%
• situational variable- proximity


  -the distance between the teacher and learner

  -milgram used experimenter giving instructions via phone call and obedience dropped to 20.5%
• strength of the 3 situational variables?

  supported by research:

  BRICKMAN’s confederates dressed in different outfits and issues demands to people in the street. found ppl obeyed 2x more when in an authoritative uniform
• weakness of 3 situational variables

  low internal validity:

  ORNE AND HOLLAND suggested that different variations will raise suspicions and lead to demand characteristics where its unsure if they obey due to the variation or DC
• two situational explanations for obedience

  1. agentic state
  2. legitimacy of authority
• 
  

  our agentic state is when we no longer feel independent and act accordingly to instructions from someone else and justify our actions due to this
• our autonomous state is where we feel independent and take responsibility for our actions
• the agentic shift is how we move from an autonomous state to an agentic state when contronted by an authority figure
• binding factors?

  these allow us to minimise the damaging effects to our behaviours and reduce moral strain that we feel- eg by shifting responsibility
• legitimacy of authority?


  • we obey people that are further up in the social hierarchy who hold power over us
  • states that authorities have legitimacy through societies agreement via accepting these figures
  • these people can use their power to punish, or in some cases, destruct- like hitler
• strength of agentic state

  supporting research: when pps of milgrams study ask the experimenter whose responsbile for the shocks, he said hes responsbile and so they were less hesitant to shock people as they werent responsbile. their agentic state was used as a binding factor
• weakness of agentic state

  doesnt explain all research findings:

  RANK AND JACOBSON- found that nurses disobeyed a doctor when he ordered them to give patients an excessive drug dose even though hes a higher authority. they remained autonomous
• name of zimbardos experiment

  the stanford prison experiment
• zimbardos procedure?

  • set up a mock prison in basement of stanford uni
  • 24 male volunteers then psychologically tested to make sure stable then randomly allocated role of guard or prisoner
  • study supposed to last 14 days
• zimbardos findings?

  • guards played their roles harshly- stripsearching, humiliated, woke them up in the night for headcounts
  • prisoners rebelled within 2 days
  • 3 prisoners left early, one on hunger strike
  • study lasted 6 days instead of 14
• zimbardos conclusions

  social roles are powerful influences of behaviour as most people in the study conformed to their social role
• strengths of zimbardo experiment?

  1. controlled key variables to minimise EV- emotional stable pps selected to increase internal validity
  2. real life application-Abu Gharib prison in which guards who used to be in the army abused, raped and tortured prisoners
• weaknesses of zimbardo's SPE?

  1. lacks ecological validity- BANUAZIZI AND MOHAVEDI suggest their actions reflect the stereotypes of those typical roles. eg one guard based his role on a character from 'cool hand luke'
  2. unethical- no protection from harm
  3. zimbardo exaggerated the power of the social roles- eg only 1/3 of guards behaved brutally
• milgrams baseline obedience study procedure?

  • recruited 40 male pps supposedly for a memory study and oaid them £4.50 each
  • experiment was a confederate who wore a lab coat, naive pps was the teacher and confederate was learner
  • learner strapped to the chair + wired with electrodes and told to remember word pairs, if they got wrong, they get shocked
  • the teacher was told 4 prods by the experimenter to ensure they continue
• milgrams findings?

  • all pps went to 300V, 12.5% stopped at 300V
  • 65% went to 450V
  • 3 had uncontrollable seizures
• strength of milgrams study

  replications have supported his results:

  in a french documentary contestants were paid to give (fake) shocks when ordered to, 80% gave 460 volts and many pps showed signs of anxiety
• weaknesses of milgrams study?

  1. lack internal validity: orne and holland argued pps guessed the shocks were fake and were play acting
  2. ethical issues- decieve, baumrind found that deception is so damaging for the researchers reputation and the pps