Social influence

• what is conformity?


  yielding to group pressure (majority influence)
• what is compliance?


  type of conformity

  PUBLICLY not privately going along with majority
• What is identification?


  type of conformity

  PUBLIC & PRIVATE
• what is internalisation?


  type of conformity

  PUBLIC & PRIVATE through adoption of the majority belief system
• Explanations for conformity


  Informational social influence (ISI)

  - motivational force to look for guidance (look for the behaviour in other people)
• what did JENNESS do? (AO1)

  Asked participants to estimate the amount of jelly beans, then talk to the group and finally make another private guess.

  - findings after talking they all moved to a further average of a group guess
• evaluation of jenness (AO3)

  + lab = controlled

  - low ecological validity (not real life)
• Explanations for conformity


  Normative social influence (NSI)

  - motivational force to be liked and accepted by the group
• What did ASCH do? (AO1)

  conformity to the obviously wrong answers

  - comparison of different length lines A,B,C and a confederate was to purposely give wrong answer

  - 75% conformed at least once
• evaluation of Asch (AO3)

  + lab experiment so controlled

  - time consuming

  - unethical - deceit

  - low ecological validity
• variables affecting conformity


  size of group

  unanimity

  task difficulty

  individual variables
• Conformity to social roles (parts individuals play as a member of social group)

  Zimbardo's study (AO1)

  Aim to see the extent people would conform and testing dispositional hypothesis and situational
• Zimbardo's procedure


  - mock prison that people applied to by an ADVERT then assigned prisoner or guard randomly

  - blindfolded and strip searched , arrested for 'realism'

  - DEHUMANISATION wearing numbered smocks and caps, chains on one ankle

  - regular timings for meals etc
• Zimbardo's findings


  guards & prisoners settled quickly into their social roles.

  after an initial prisoner rebellion, dehumanisation became increasingly apparent - the guards became even more sadistic, taunting prisoners & giving them meaningless, boring tasks to do, reminding them of the powerlessness of their role.

  the prisoners became submissive & unquestioning of the guards' behaviour.

  after 36 hours, 1 prisoner was released due to fits of crying & rage. 3 more prisoners developed similar behaviours & were released on subsequent days.

  scheduled to run for 14 days, the study was stopped after 6 days when Zimbardo realised the extent of the harm that was occurring & the increasingly aggressive nature of the guards' behaviour as they identified more closely with their role.
• Zimbardo evaluation (AO3)


  + control over variables (selection over p's)

  + practical applications (way prisoners are treated based off of tv shows etc)

  + research to support

  - major ethical issues (protection of p's was broken as prisoner had a breakdown)

  - mock prison lacks mundane realism (stereotyped roles of guards and prisoners)
• what is obedience?


  complying with the demands of an authority figure
• What did Milgram do?

  selected people from an advert to be apart of a research for memory and the effects of punishment, met by a confederate in a lab coat and told instructions they had to give the student a shock after every wrong answer

  after 330 volts student confederate stopped shouting and the teacher refused to give more but the lab experimenter said verbal phrases to make them carry on 'you must continue/the experiment requires you to continue' and 'this does not do any long term damage
• findings of Milgrams research

  obedient rate of 62% to 450 volts and 100% at least up to 300 volts, p's showed sings of distress and discomfort
• Evaluation of Milgram (AO3)

  + standardised = replicable

  + insight into why people obey

  - low ecological validity

  - ETHICAL issues (deception, right to withdraw, protection of p's)
• What did Hofling do?

  22 nursers told by a fake doctor to hand out a prescription of an unknown drug (sugar pill) and told Dr.Smith would sign for it later

  - 21/22 nurses obeyed and gave the drug to the p's
• Evaluation of Hofling (AO3)

  + high ecological validity as it was a real life situation

  - unrealistic issues as nursers normally consult one another and doctors do not tell instructions like that over the phone
• What are the explanations for obedience?

  Agentic state - obey as they do not see themslef as personally responsible for the actions (acting as an 'agent')

  Autononous state - they feel personally responsible for their actions

  Legitimacy of authority - see the power they have over someone else based off of how they look or what they do as a job etc
• what are the 3 situational variables that affect OBEDIENCE?

  1. proximity - how aware they are of the consequences (if closer to the negative outcome then obey less) - Milgram if teacher and student in same room declined to 40% obedience

  2. location - external settings affect the level of obedience

  Milgram changed from Yale uni to a run down block and drop to 47.5%

  3. uniform - the clothing worn by an authority figure affects the obedience

  Bickman found people in NYC picking up litter obeyed a security guard 38% than a milkman 14% or civilian clothes 17%
• What is authoritarian personality

  dispositional explanation affecting obedience

  - proposed by Fromm as an attempt to explain those holding right wing conservative views

  = personality type with rigid beliefs and is intolerant to ambiguity
• Adorno F scale questionnaire

  links to the authoritarian personality = assigned different personalities to people

  1. a person who had bad manners, habits and breeding can hardly expect to get along with decent people

  2. if people would talk less and work more they'd be better off
• Evaluation of situational variables affecting obedience

  +There is research to support Milgram's findings of

  agency theory explaining high levels of obedience.

  EG Blass found that when asked who they thought

  was responsible for the harm to the learner in a clip

  of Milgram's study, ps answered 'the experimenter'.

  +Cross-cultural studies have shown cultural differences in levels of obedience EG in replications of Milgram's study only 16% of Australian ps gave the max shock (Kilham) whereas 85% of Germans gave the top voltage (Mantell), showing how legitimacy of authority is more likely to be accepted in some

  cultures and how this will impact how children are

  raised for example to follow authority.

  + research to support (Bickman and uniform)

  -Agentic shift is a limited explanation that can only account

  for obedience shown in some situations = not likely to happen in certain places and subject to demand characteristics
• evaluation of dispositional variables affecting obedience

  +There is some research support for the dispositional explanation of obedience, eg Elms and Milgram, who found that ps who obeyed fully scored more highly on the

  F-Scale.

  +Situational factors alone would be an incomplete explanation (reductionist) so it is likely that innate and personality factors

  are involved in influencing behaviour also.

  -The F-scale measures a politically biased interpretation of the authoritarian personality. It can't account for obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum.

  -Supposedly authoritarian individuals don't always score highly on the F-scale, reducing the validity of its dimensions.

  -The F-scale questionnaire suffers response bias, which lowers validity of its results.
• Explanations of resistance to social influence

  social support

  locus of control (internal and external)
• Social support conformity


  when others obey in social situations who defy attempts to make them conform and obey = becomes easier to resist (influential support)

  Asch found that if people who answered correctly from the start conformity drops from 32% to 5.5% (social support received from the start was 5.5% rather than half way as 8.5%)
• Social support obedience


  - in one of Milgram's variations rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when genuine pp was joined by disobedient confederate

  - other persons disobedience acts as a model for others to copy that frees him go act from his own conscience
• Locus of control


  internal LoC - people believe they have a choice and their events in life are down to them

  - resist more as easier to change the mind of them

  external LoC - believe that its down to luck and fate

  - more likely to conform as easily influence by other people (no personal control)
• Research into LoC


  Spector - 157 uni students given Rotters scale and found that a high external locus conformed more than low but only in situations that proved normative social pressure (less need for social acceptance = conform less)

  Blass - those with an internal locus were more able to resist obedience
• Minority influence


  A type of social influence that motivates individuals to reject established majority group norms.

  1. consistency

  2. commitment

  3. flexibility
• consistency


  the idea that the more unchanging the viewpoint of the majority the more persuasive
• commitment


  minority group showing dedication to their opinion affects individuals level of agreement
• felxibility


  the extent to which a minority group being prepared to slightly alter their opinion affects an individuals level of agreement with that opinion
• Moscovici study - commitment


  placed 32 groups of six in each group with 4 real participants and 2 confederates in each group

  - each shown 36 blue slides with filters varying the blue shades

  1. consistent group the confederates answers wrongly

  2. inconsistent group they answered 24 as green and 12 as blue

  findings = 8.2% agreement with minority in consistent condition

  1.25% in the inconsistent

  showing that there is an important value to consistency for minority influence
• social influence process


  the way in which society changes beliefs and attitudes and behaviour to create new social norms

  = social change is the alteration of behaviour patterns within a culture
• process of social change

  1. drawing attention to the situation

  2. consistency

  3. deeper processing beginning to think about why they changed

  4. augmentation principle (awareness that people risked their lives for the change = black rights on buses and suffragettes)

  5. snowball effect = gradual change that leads to a bigger change

  5. social cryptomnesia so do not remember how the change happened only know the change occurred
• social change


  can be positive = leads to women right

  negative outcomes = such as developing eugenic beliefs (people of different race as genetically inferior)

  = help maintain social order

  = minority influence changes the mainstream ideas of the majority