social influence

• what is conformity?


  conformity is a change in a person's behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people
• what is internalisation?


  when a person genuinely accepts the groups norms,

  results in a private and public change of opinions/behaviour,

  more likely to be a permanent change e.g becoming a vegetarian
• what is compliance?


  conforming publicly but continuing to disagree privately

  going along with others in public but privately not changing behaviour or opinion-

  superficial change. eg laughing at a joke that's not funny
• what is identification?


  conforming to the opinions/ behaviour of a group bc there is something about the group they value

  may publicly change behaviour even if privately they don't agree e.g religious/ political views
• who suggested their two-process theory of social influence and what are the two explanations?

  deutsch and gerard (1955)

  ISI and NSI
• explain informational social influence

  occurs when we look to the majority of the group for information (based on the desire to be right) as we are unsure about the way in which to behave.

  a person will conform because they genuinely believe the majority to be right and want to be right also.

  it is a cognitive process.
• explain normative social influence

  occurs when we wish to be liked or accepted by the majority group, so we go along even if we disagree.

  people do not want to appear foolish, and prefer to gain social approval rather than rejection, just fitting in with the 'norm'. It is emotional rather than cognitive.
• what does ISI usually lead to?

  internalisation
• what does NSI usually lead to?

  compliance/ identification
• what was asch's aim?


  to measure the extent that people conformed to the opinions of others in a situation where the answer is obvious
• what was asch's procedure?

  solomon asch (1956) tested conformity by showing participants 2 large white cards at a time with lines on them.

  123 male americans tested individually, sitting last or next to last in a group of 6-8 confederates

  line x is standard line, lines a, b, c are comparison lines, they had to compare the lines and pick the correct one (answer was always obvious)
• what were asch's findings?

  naive participants conformed 36.8% of the time, showing a high level of conformity when situation is unambiguous

  25% did not conform at all while 75% conformed at least once

  when the participants were interviewed afterward, most said they conformed to avoid rejection (NSI).
• name the 3 variables in asch's study and explain their effect

  Group size- asch varied the number of confederates 1 to 15, he found that with 3 confederates, conformity to the wrong answer rose by 31.8% , adding more confederates made little difference.

  Unanimity- asch introduced a non conforming confederate ( a dissenter) and conformity reduced by 25%. as it enabled the naive participant to behave more independently.

  Task difficulty- asch made the task more difficult by making the lines more similar in length , conformity increased in these conditions, this is because when a task becomes harder people are more likely to look to other people for guidance- ISI
• define androcentric


  research which focuses only on males
• what are social roles?

  a social role is a pattern of behaviour that is expected of a person in a given setting or group
• what was zimbardo's aim?

  to investigate the effect of social roles on conformity
• what was zimbardo's procedure?

  Zimbardo set up a mock prison in the basement of stanford university. he advertised for students willing to volunteer and selected those deemed 'emotionally stable'.

  students were randomly assigned 24 male students to the role of either a guard or prisoner. the prisoners were arrested at home by local police and delivered to the mock prison, blind folded, strip searched deloused and issued with uniform and number.

  the guards were also given a uniform which consisted of a wooden club. handcuffs, keys, mirrored sunglasses. they were told they have complete power over the prisoners.
• what were zimbardo's findings?

  - within 2 days , prisoners rebelled against harsh treatment from guards. ripped their uniforms, shouted, swore and guards retaliated with fire extinguishers.

  - the guards constantly harassed prisoners, highlighting difference in social roles , creating plenty of opportunities to enforce the rules and punish even the smallest misdemeanour.

  - prisoners became subdued, depressed and anxious. one prisoner released first day because he showed signs of psychological disturbance.

  - one prisoner went on a hunger strike , the guards attempted to force feed him- punished him by putting him in ' the hole' - a tiny dark closet

  - the guards increasingly identified with their role

  - study ended after 6 days instead of the 14 as planned
• what are the conclusions drawn from zimbardo's research?

  social roles are powerful influences on behaviour as most conformed strongly to their role

  Guards, prisoners and researchers, all conformed to their roles and they were very easily taken on by participants

  even volunteers who came in to perform certain functions ( eg prison chaplain) found themselves behaving as if they were in a prison rather than a study.
• what is obedience?


  the change of an individual's behaviour to comply with a demand by an authority figure
• what was milgram's aim?

  to investigate the extent to which individuals would obey an authority figure, even when instructions conflicted with personal morals
• what was milgram's procedure?

  -recruited 40 American male participants for a study of memory

  - each participant arrived at his lab and drew lots for their role but it was rigged as the confederate (Mr Wallace) was always the Learner while the true participant was the Teacher

  - Experimenter which was another confederate wore a lab coat

  - Teacher had to give Learner an increasingly severe electric shock each time (15V to 450V) they made a mistake. If they wished to stop, Experimenter gave verbal prods
• what were the four verbal prods?

  -''Please continue

  -''The experiment requires that you continue''

  -''It is absolutely essential that you continue''

  -''You have no other choice, you must go on
• how did learners respond to the electric shocks?

  -shock level started at 15V and rose to 450V

  -when the teacher got to 300V, the learner pounded on the wall and gave no response to the next question, after 315, the learner pounded on the wall and gave no responses

  -teacher was told that an absence of an answer should be treated as a wrong answer
• what were milgram's findings?

  qualitative: participants showed signs of extreme tension. 3 had 'full blown uncontrollable seizures.'

  quantitative: 12.5% ( 5 people) stopped at 300V while 65% continued to 450V

  after debriefing, 84% were glad they participated

  before the study, M asked 14 psychology students to predict how they thought the naive participants would respond and they said that no more than 3% would continue to 450V
• what was milgram's conclusion?

  he concluded that we obey legitimate authority even if that means that our behaviour causes harm to someone else and certain situational factors encourage obedience
• what are the three situational factors Milgram investigated?

  -proximity

  -location

  -uniform
• explain how proximity affects obedience?

  -the teacher and learner were originally in separate rooms, when in the same room, the obedience dropped 65% to 40%

  -in another version, the teacher had to force the learners hand onto the electric shock plate, obedience rate was 30%

  -in third variation, experimenter left the room and gave instructions via telephone, obedience rate was 20.5% and participants often pretended to give shocks

  explanation: decreased proximity allows people to psychologically distance themselves from the consequences of their actions
• explain how location affects obedience?

  -study originally conducted in prestigious Yale Uni then changed to a run-down building and obedience rate dropped to 47.5%

  explanation: og setting was more legitimate and had authority
• explain how uniform affects obedience?

  -in baseline, experimenter wore a grey lab coat

  -called away by an inconvenient telephone call and his role was taken over by an 'ordinary member of the public' in everyday clothes, obedience fell to 20% which was the lowest

  explanation: a uniform is a strong symbol of legitimate authority
• what are the situational explanations of obedience?

  agentic state

  -mental state where we feel no responsibility for our behaviour, we believe to be acting for an authority figure which frees us from demands of consciences and allows us to obey even destructive authority figures

  - the opposite is an autonomous state, where a person is free to behave according to their own principles and have responsibility for their own actions

  -the shift from autonomous to agentic is called the agentic shift

  legitimacy of authority

  -we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us according to the social hierarchy

  -We learn to accept authority during childhood (parents, teachers etc.)

  -History shows leaders have used legitimate authority destructively, ordering people to behave in cruel, dangerous ways.

  -Destructive authority seen in Milgrams study when experimenter used prods to make participants behave against their consciences.
• what is a binding factor?


  -aspects of a situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduce the moral strain they feel
• what is a dispositional explanation for obedience?

  the authoritarian personality (AP)
• what is the authoritarian personality and who was it identified by?

  Refers to a person who has extreme respect for authority and is more likely to be obedient to those who hold power over them while expressing contempt for people of inferior social status

  Adorno et al (1950)
• where does the AP originate from?

  originates from childhood through harsh parenting, extremely strict discipline, expectations of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards and severe criticism, also characterised by conditional love
• what did adorno et al study in 1950 to do with AP?

  he investigated unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic groups of more than 2000 middle-class white Americans.
• what was the procedure for adorno et al's study?

  developed a questionnaire called the f-scale (fascist scale) to test whether someone had an AP

  examples were rated on a scale from 1 to 6 where 6= agree strongly

  some of the examples include:

  ''obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues for children to learn''

  ''there is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel great love, gratitude, and respect for his parents
• what were findings from adornos study?

  authoritarians (who scored high on the F-scale and other measures) identified with 'strong' people and were contemptuous of the 'weak'

  conscious of their own and others' status, showing excessive respect and deference to those of higher status (prejudiced)

  fixed and distinctive stereotypes abt other groups
• what are the two explanations for resistance to social influence?

  social support: when the presence of people helps others resist the pressures of conforming or obeying

  Asch's research showed that the dissenter doesn't have to give the right answer but simply the fact that someone else is not following the majority appears to enable a person to be free to follow their own conscience

  The dissenter acts as a 'model' of independent behaviour

  Their dissent encourages more dissent bc it shows that the majority is no longer unanimous

  locus of control (LOC): describes a persons perception of their control over behaviours, successes, failures and events internals place control and responsibility with themselves and externals place control outside themselves
• what is the LOC and who suggested it?

  measurement of an individual's sense of control over their lives, i.e to what extent they feel that events in their lives are under their own personal control, versus under the control of other external powers like fate.

  rotter (1966)