psychology

• Conformity


  When our behaviours change due to pressure from a person or a group
• Internalisation


  Our public and private beliefs and behaviours agree with one another. We accept the group norm as our own as we believe it is correct.
• Identification


  Our public and private behaviour agree as we want to be accepted as part of a group. However once the group has left our public and private behaviour will revert to normal.
• Compliance


  Our public and private beliefs do not agree. We take the group's behaviour but we do not accept it privately. However, the change is only temporary as we revert back to our normal behaviour when the group is not present.
• Normative social influence (NSI)

  An explanation for conformity where we are motivated by a need to fit in. It is most likely to occur in unfamiliar situations where we are uncertain of what the group norm is.
• Informational social influence (ISI)


  An explanation for conformity where we are motivated to be correct. This is likely to happen in ambiguous situations. Usually we are unsure of an answer and therefore believe that others have a superior judgement and therefore accept their answer.
• When the maths problems were difficult, participants conformed more often to incorrect answers they were given, as they didn't want to be wrong and relied on the answers they were given.
• Some people are greatly concerned with being liked by others (nAffiliators) and are more likely to conform as they want to relate to other people.
• Stanford Prison Experiment


  • Zimbardo had control over key variables by selecting emotionally stable individuals and randomly assigning them to the roles of prisoner or guard, ruling out individual personality differences as an explanation.
  • The experiment lacked the realism of a true prison, as participants may have been merely play-acting rather than genuinely conforming.
  • Zimbardo may have overstated the power of social roles to influence behaviour, as only one third of guards behaved in a brutal manner.
• In Milgram's obedience study, 26 out of 40 participants administered the maximum 450V shock when the experimenter told them to do so.
• 84% of Milgram's participants said they were glad they had participated in the study.
• Milgram's findings were replicated in a French documentary, where 80% of participants delivered the maximum shock of 460 volts to an apparently unconscious man.
• Milgram's procedure may not have been testing what he intended to test, as some participants may have been 'play-acting' and not genuinely believing the shocks were real.
• d Holland


  Argued that the participants behaved as they did because they didn't really believe in the set up, so they were 'play-acting'
• Perry's research


  Confirms that only about half of Milgram's participants believed the shocks were real
• Demand characteristics


  Participants may have been responding to, trying to fulfil the aims of the study
• Sheridan and King conducted a study using a procedure like Milgram's, where participants gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimenter
• Despite the real distress of the animal, 54% of the men and 100% of the women gave what they thought was a fatal shock
• Milgram's conclusions about blind obedience may not be justified
• Haslam et al. showed

  Milgram's participants only obeyed when the Experimenter delivered the first three verbal prods, but every participant who was given the fourth prod ('You have no other choice, you must go on) without exception disobeyed
• Proximity variations in Milgram's study

  Decreased proximity allows people to psychologically distance themselves from the consequences of their actions, leading to increased obedience
• In Milgram's baseline study, obedience fell from 65% to 45% when the participant and learner were in the same room, and further to 30% when the participant had to physically force the learner's hand onto the 'electroshock plate'
• In the remote instruction variation, where the experimenter left the room and gave instructions by telephone, obedience dropped to 25.5%
• Participants also frequently pretended to give shocks in the proximity variations
• Prestigious university environment


  Gave Milgram's study legitimacy and authority, leading to higher obedience rates
• In a variation conducted in a run-down office block, obedience fell to 47.5% from 65% in the baseline study
• In Milgram's baseline study, when the experimenter's role was taken over by an 'ordinary member of the public' in everyday clothes, the obedience rate dropped to 20% - the lowest
• Bickman's field experiment in NYC found people were twice as likely to obey a confederate dressed as a security guard than one in a jacket and tie
• Meeus and Raaijmakers replicated Milgram's findings about proximity in a study where Dutch participants were ordered to say stressful things to a confederate desperate for a job
• 90% of participants obeyed in Meeus and Raaijmakers' study, and obedience decreased dramatically when the person giving the orders wasn't present
• Agentic state


  Being independent/free to behave according to one's own principles and feel a sense of responsibility for one's own actions
• Agentic shift


  The change from autonomy to 'agency', where a person perceives someone else as an authority figure with greater power due to their higher position in the social hierarchy
• Rank and Jacobson's study found 16/18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose, despite the doctor being an obvious authority figure
• Studies show countries differ in the degree to which people are obedient to authority, with only 16% of Australian women going all the way up to 450 volts in a Milgram-style study, compared to 85% of German participants
• Authoritarian personality (AP)


  Shows an extreme respect and submissiveness for authority, views society as 'weaker' so believes we need strong leaders, and shows contempt for those of inferior social status
• Authoritarian learning


  Identified with 'strong' people, were contemptuous of the 'weak', very conscious of status, and showed extreme respect, defence and servility to those of higher status
• Milgram and Elms found that fully obedient participants in the original obedience studies scored significantly higher on the F-scale measuring authoritarianism than disobedient participants
• One limitation is that authoritarianism cannot explain obedient behaviour in the majority of a country's population
• Pre-war Germany, millions of individuals displayed obedient and anti-semetic behaviour despite differing in their personalities in all sorts of ways
• 1. scale


  Only measures the tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology