social influence - paper 1 psychology

• Milgram's experiment

  1. Recruited 40 male volunteers

  2. Built a phony "shock generator"

  3. Paired each volunteer with a colleague posing as a research subject

  4. Had them draw straws to see who would be the "learner" and who would be the "teacher"

  5. The "teacher" was told to administer electric shocks for wrong answers, increasing the shock level each time

  6. The researcher gave orders to the "teacher" to continue
• About two-thirds of the participants ended up delivering the maximum 450 volt shock, and all of the volunteers continued to at least 300 volts
• Factors that increased obedience in Milgram's experiment

  • The person giving the orders was nearby and perceived as an authority figure
  • The victim was depersonalized or placed at a distance
  • There were no role models of defiance
• Social influence

  How groups and situations can influence our behavior and thinking
• Conformity

  Adjusting our behavior or thinking to follow the behavior or rules of the group we belong to
• Asch's conformity experiment

  1. Volunteer is told they're participating in a study on visual perception

  2. Seated at a table with 5 other people

  3. Shown a picture of a standard line and 3 comparison lines

  4. Asked to say which of the 3 lines matches the standard

  5. Most of the other people in the group intentionally give the wrong answer

  6. This causes the real participant to struggle with trusting their own eyes or going with the group
• Over a third of participants in Asch's experiment were willing to give the wrong answer to mesh with the group
• Factors that increase conformity

  • Feeling incompetent or insecure
  • Being in a group of 3 or more people who all agree
  • Admiring the group's status or attractiveness
  • Feeling that others are watching your behavior
  • Coming from a culture that emphasizes respect for social standards
• Normative social influence

  Complying in order to fuel our need to be liked or belong
• Deindividuation

  Loss of self-awareness and restraint that can occur in group situations
• Group polarization

  Attitudes and beliefs becoming stronger when we talk with others who share them
• While two-thirds of Milgram's participants would shock someone to death, there's another third who wouldn't, reminding us that while group behavior is powerful, so is individual choice
• Conformity

  A type of social influence where a person yields to group pressures
• Conformity

  A change in a person's behaviour or opinion as a result of a real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people
• Types of conformity (Kelman)

  • Internalisation
  • Identification
  • Compliance
• Internalisation

  Making the beliefs, values, attitude and behaviour of the group your own (strongest type of conformity, often occurs due to informational social influence)
• Identification

  Temporary/short term change of behaviour and beliefs only in the presence of a group (middle level)
• Compliance

  Following other people's ideas/going along with the group to gain their approval or avoid disapproval (lowest/weakest level of conformity)
• Informational social influence

  Conforming because you want to be right, so you look to others by copying or obeying them, to have the right answer in a situation
• Normative social influence

  Conforming because you want to be liked and be part of a group; your need to be accepted or have approval from a group drives compliance
• NSI and ISI may not be completely exclusive, as suggested by Deutsch and Gerrard's 'Two Process Model'
• Asch's study

  • Participants were 123 male American undergraduates in groups of 6; consisting of 1 true participant and 5 confederates
  • Participants were presented with 4 lines; 3 comparison lines and 1 standard line
  • Confederates would give the same incorrect answer for 12 out of 18 trials
  • Asch observed how often the participant would give the same incorrect answer as the confederates versus the correct answer
• 36.8% conformed, 25% never conformed, 75% conformed at least once in Asch's study
• Group size

  An individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group
• Unanimity of majority

  An individual is more likely to conform when the group is unanimous i.e. all give the same answer, as opposed to them all giving different answers
• Task difficulty

  An individual is more likely to conform when the task is difficult
• Asch's study had high internal validity due to strict control of extraneous variables
• Asch's study lacked ecological validity as it was based on perception of lines rather than real life situations
• Asch's study lacked population validity due to using only American male undergraduates as participants
• Asch's study involved deception and potential psychological harm, raising ethical issues
• Asch's study may have been influenced by the social context of the 1950s in America, reducing temporal validity
• Zimbardo's study

  • Participants were 24 American male undergraduate students
  • Participants were randomly assigned to be either guards or prisoners in a simulated prison
  • Behaviour of participants was observed
• Prisoners and guards rapidly identified with and adopted their assigned roles in Zimbardo's study
• Guards began to harass and torment prisoners, while prisoners became submissive and defended the guards in Zimbardo's study
• Zimbardo's study led to changes in how US prisons are run, demonstrating real-life applications
• Participants in Zimbardo's study were fully debriefed, addressing ethical issues
• Agentic state

  When a person believes that someone else will take responsibility for their own actions
• Agentic shift

  When a person shifts from an autonomous state (where they believe they will take responsibility for their own actions) to an agentic state
• Legitimacy of authority

  How credible the figure of authority is, people are more likely to obey if the authority is seen as credible and legitimate
• In Milgram's study, the experimenter was seen as a legitimate authority figure as he was a scientist