Social influence and RM

• Types of conformity

  Compliance, Internalisation, Identification
• Explanations for conformity

  Normative Social Influence (NSI), Informational Social Influence (ISI)
• Compliance

  When an individual goes with the majority group's viewpoint to avoid disapproval. This does not change their underlying attitude, but will change their public opinion.
• Internalisation

  Close examinations of a group's viewpoint may convince someone they are wrong and the group is right, therefore changing the individual's opinion both publicly and privately.
• Identification

  The adopting of a group's attitudes and behaviours since they want to be associated with them, changing both their public and private opinion.
• Normative social influence

  Where the individual may believe they're under surveillance by the group and conform to the majority view in public, likely due to the fear of being rejected.
• Informational social influence

  Where an individual will accept information from others as evidence surrounding reality. Sometimes, people have to rely on the opinions of others.
• Why compliance and internalisation is hard to identify

  We don't know which is taking place - for example, someone may comply with a group privately if they disagree with the majority, but may eventually internalise the view.
• Research support for normative social influence

  - Students exposed to a message saying their peers disagree with smoking were less likely to take up smoking (Linkenbach and Perkins)

  - Hotel guests exposed to the message saying others re-used their towel reduced towel usage by 25%.
• Research support for informational social influence

  - Individuals exposed to negative opinions surrounding African Americans started developing more negative attitudes towards said group (Wittenbrink and Henley)
• Normative influence is hard to detect

  - Nolan et al (2008) asked people about factors on their energy conservation, and whilst they believed their neighbours had the least influence, results said they had the strongest impact
• Informational influence is moderated by task type

  - Statistically moderated tasks are easier to assess than opinionated tasks
• Asch: Experiment procedure

  - 123 male US undergraduates tested

  - Participants asked to look at lines of three different lengths

  - They took turns to see which of the 3 lines were the same length as the standard line

  - There were several people in the room, but the real participant was always second to last

  - On 12 of 18 of the trials, the confederates gave the wrong answer

  - The interest was whether the real participant conformed or not
• Asch: Experiment findings

  - On the 12 critical trials, the conformity rate was 33%

  - 1 out of 4 of the participants never conformed on any of the critical trials

  - Half conformed on 6 or more

  - 1 out of 20 conformed on all of the critical trials

  - To confirm the stimulus lines were unambiguous, Asch repeated the experiment without the confederates, and found 1% of the time that mistakes were made

  - The majority of participants who conformed continued to privately trust their own perceptions and judgements but changed their public opinions

  - This was to avoid disapproval from other group members
• Asch AO3: The research was done in a unique moment in time

  - The case was during the McCarthy era, where people in the US were more likely to conform to the majority.

  - Perrin and Spencer repeated this in 1980 in the UK however, and found similar levels of conformity
• Asch AO3: Issue with group size

  - Bond (2005) suggested that the studies used a very limited range of majority sizes

  - As a result, we know very little about the effect of larger majority sizes on conformity levels.
• Asch AO3: Independent behaviour instead of conformity


  - Only one third of the participants gave conforming responses

  - Instead, his study demonstrated that people tend to also stick to what they believe in
• Asch AO3: Unconvincing confederates

  - In the Asch study, it may have been hard for the confederates to act convincingly

  - Mori and Arai (2010) repeated Asch's study, but instead using polarising filters on each of the participants. The real participant used a different filter to the confederates'.

  - Female participants' results linked closely to those from the Asch study (however not male).
• Asch AO3: Cultural differences in conformity

  - Smith (2006) analysed the results of the Asch studies across a number of different cultures

  - The average conformity rate across the different cultures was 31.2%

  - The average conformity rate for individualist cultures was 25% and collectivist cultures was 37%
• Zimbardo: Procedure

  - A mock prison was set up in Stanford University

  - Male student volunteers were psychologically and physically screened, and the 24 most stable were assigned as the role of the prisoner or guard

  - Prisoners were unexpectedly arrested at homes

  - They were given a prison uniform and an ID number they could only be referenced by

  - Guards were given uniforms, clubs, whistles and wore reflective sunglasses that prevented eye contact

  - Zimbardo was Prison Superintendent

  - It was meant to last 2 weeks
• Zimbardo: Findings

  - Guards grew increasingly abusive towards prisoners

  - They forced them to clean toilets with bare hands and engage in other degrading activities

  - Some guards even volunteered to do extra hours without pay

  - They still conformed to their roles, regardless of whether they knew they were being watched or not

  - Five prisoners were released early due to their extreme reactions, symptoms that appeared after just two days

  - The study was only terminated after six days
• Reicher and Haslam (2006): Procedure

  - Men were randomly assigned to be prisoner or guard

  - Fifteen participants were divided into five groups - one guard, two prisoners

  - The study ran for 8 days
• Reicher and Haslam: Findings

  - Participants did not conform automatically

  - Prisoners increasingly identified as a group and worked collectively to challenge the authority of the guards

  - They also attempted to establish a more egalitarian set of social relations within the prison

  - Guards were reluctant to impose their authority on the prisoners
• Zimbardo: Conformity to roles is not automatic

  - Guard behaviour varied from fully sadistic to there being a few "good" guards

  - This shows that guards chose how to behave rather than conforming to their role
• Zimbardo: Demand characteristics

  - Banuazizi and Movahedi (1975) believed that the behaviour of the participants was a result of demand characteristics

  - They presented the details of the SPE to a large sample of students who'd never heard of it before

  - They guessed that the guards would act sadistic and the prisoners would act passive

  - This shows it was not due to the prison environment, but the demand characteristics
• Zimbardo: Was it ethical?

  - The study was criticised for not being ethical, despite it followed the guidelines of the Stanford University ethics committee

  - Zimbardo does acknowledge that it should've been stopped earlier however

  - He carried out several debriefing sessions for several years after an concluded that there were no lasting effects
• Milgram: Procedure

  - 40 participants were taken at a time over a series of conditions, varying said experiment occasionally

  - There were two confederates involved too: the experimenter, and another "participant".

  - The two participants would draw lots to see who would be "teacher" or "learner", but the lots are rigged so that the real participant is always the teacher

  - The teacher would test the learner on their ability to remember words

  - If the learner got one wrong, the teacher would have to administer increasing electric shocks (+15V interval, max 450V)

  - If the teacher requested to drop out, the experimenter would prompt them to go on
• Milgram: Predictions

  - Milgram asked psychiatrists, college students and colleagues to predict how long participants would continue for before refusing to continue

  - These groups believed very few would go beyond 150V and 1 in a 1000 would reach 450V
• Milgram: Findings

  - 65% continued to the maximum shock level

  - All participants reached 300V but 5 stopped there (when the learner first objected)
• Milgram: Proximity and Touch proximity

  - This time, both the teacher and learner were in the same room

  - Obedience levels fell to 40% as the teacher could experience the learner's anguish more directly

  - Obedience fell to 30% when the teacher had to force the learner's hand onto a shock plate

  - When the experimenter was no longer present, the vast majority defied them with only 21% continuing to the maximum shock level

  - Some were applying the weakest shock level despite the teacher telling the experimenter that they were following the procedure
• Milgram: Location

  - The studies were held in the psychology laboratory at Yale University

  - Several participants said the lab gave them confidence of the integrity of the people involved, and wouldn't have shocked the learner elsewhere

  - As a result, Milgram moved the experiment to a run-down office

  - Obedience levels dropped to 48%, but was not significant
• Milgram: The power of uniform

  - Bushman (1988) carried out a study where a female researcher would dress in either a "police-style" uniform, as a beggar or as a business executive and would ask people to stop and give change to a male researcher for an expired parking meter.

  - 72% of people obeyed her in the police uniform in comparison to beggar (52%) and business executive (48%).

  - After being interviewed, the people claimed they obeyed the woman in the uniform as she appeared to have authority.
• Milgram: Lack of realism

  - Perry (2012) found many participants had been sceptical about whether the shocks were real or not

  - One of Milgram's assistants split the participants into two groups: doubters and believers.

  - He found believers were more likely to disobey the experimenter and give only low intensity shocks

  - This means when faced with the reality of destructive obedience, people are more likely to disobey an authority figure
• Milgram: Research support for the power of uniform

  - Children aged 5-9 were asked to identify who of two illustrated men could make an arrest

  - The first man was a policeman but with civilian clothes, the other who had another job but was dressed as a policeman

  - The children would select the man dressed as the policeman
• The Agentic State

  Where an individual feels responsible to the authority directing them rather than for their own actions
• Agentic state and self-image

  - People may maintain the Agentic state to maintain a positive self-image

  - If the action is not their responsibility, then their self-image is no longer being reflected with this action

  - If the individual may also fear they will appear rude and arrogant when turning down an order, and behaviour is not often taken as lightly either
• Legitimacy of authority

  Where a person is perceived to be in personal control of a situation
• Legitimacy of authority: The definition of the situation

  - People will accept the definition of a situation that are provided by legitimate authority

  - Although it may be the individual themselves who performs the action, they allow the authority figure to define the situation
• AO3: Agentic state and real-life obedience

  - Lifton (1986) found Milgram's claims could not explain the gradual and irreversible transition in their study on German doctors in Auschwitz

  - These doctors went from caring for their patients' welfare to performing lethal and vile experiments on helpless prisoners
• AO3: Agentic state Vs Cruelty

  - Whilst Milgram believed the agentic state explained his findings best, there were other possibilities

  - He had detected signs of cruelty in some participants who used the experiment to express their sadistic impulses

  - This belief was backed up by the SPE, where guards inflicted rapidly increasing cruelty on the prisoners