psychology aqa social influence

• the characteristics of high score on the f-scale is

  1. high respect for people with higher social status
  2. have fixed stereotypes for other groups
  3. they are identified as 'strong' people
  4. no 'grey areas'
• Adorno studied authoritarian personality by giving participants questionnaires. The questions revealed unconscious feelings towards minority groups. He developed the F-scale
• Adorno suggested that people with an authoritarian personality had their obedient personality shaped early in life by harsh parenting and the anger they felt towards their parents was displaced onto others mainly minority groups
• evaluation the theory of authoritarian personality:

  1. Methodological limitation = due to the questions were worded in the same 'direction' -> high score of authoritarianism -> may not be authoritarian but mainly 'acquiescers'
  2. politically problematic, ignores L-W theory. Both emphasis the importance of complete obedience to legitimate political authority. Inadequate. C: Begue et al= replicated the Milgram study found that participants who defined themselves as on the left of the political spectrum were less likely to obey and delivered low intensity electric shocks
• situational variables that affect obedience are:

  1. proximity of the authority figure
  2. proximity of the victim
  3. location
  4. uniforms
• the legitimacy of authority says

  because we grow up in social hierarchies, we learn from a young age to obey people who are higher up in the social hierarchy and are seemed as legitimate.
• Moral strain is

  when someone feels like they need to obey the authority figure, but they don't want to be responsible for the horrible consequences
• The aims of Milgram's experiment was to investigate if there's something different about the German's that makes them obey or if anyone can obey
• procedure of Milgram's experiment:

  1. participants volunteered to take part and were deceived on a study about memory.
  2. the participants were fixed to be a 'teacher' as the 'learner' was a confederate
  3. Milgram got his participants to administer electric shocks (which were fake) of increasing voltage under the orders of the experimenter every time the 'learner' got a question wrong
  4. the teacher would be encouraged by the experimenter to continue (the 4 prods)
• Findings of Milgram's original study:

  1. 65% of participants obeyed up to the highest voltage of 450 volts
  2. 100% of participants obeyed to 300 volts
  3. He concluded that anyone can be made to obey and that Germans are not different
• Milgram's additional experiment findings:

  1. teacher and learner in the same room = 40% fully obeyed to 450 volts
  2. teacher received instructions through a phone = 20.5% fully obeyed
  3. teacher forcing learners hand into the shock plate = 30% fully obeyed
  4. experiment in a run down building = 47.5% fully obeyed
  5. Experimenter replaced by a plain-clothed 'ordinary member of the public' = 20% obeyed
• Minority influence is when the minority changes the attitudes and behaviours of a majority
• augmentation principle: engaging in extreme activities to draw attention to their minority views, majority would take their views more seriously
• snowball effect = over time, increasing numbers of people 'covert' to the minority views. The more this happens, the faster the rate of conversion
• the 3 principles of minority influence are:

  1. consistency
  2. commitment
  3. flexibility
• Flexibility: To avoid being dogmatic rigid, minority should strike a balance between flexibility and consistency. This minority must be able to adapt their point of view
• Commitment: Minorities need to show commitment to their cause. They can do this by making sacrifices or taking risks.
• evaluating minority influence:

  1. There is support for consistency --> moscovici's study
  2. support for deeper processing --> martin et al
  3. lack external validity as the researches involves artificial tasks
  4. wood (meta-analysis of 100 similar studies)= found that minorities who were consistent were the most influential
• conclusions of Zimbardo's study:

  situational environments (such as prisons) can radically alter the behaviour of previously stable individuals. This is due to individuals changing to conform to socially defined role
• Reicher and Haslam's replication found that:

  the findings did not match Zimbardo's study. Prisoners were very disobedient and guards resisted showing authority
• evaluations for Milgram's study:

  1. laboratory experiment = able to control extraneous variable which can help establish an cause and effect relationship between variables he manipulated and levels of obedience
  2. lacks ecological validity --> artificial task, cannot generalise to real life
  3. biased sample (American white men) = androcentric bias
  4. lacks internal validity = demand characteristics as they believed the shock was fake (perry discovered many of milgram's participants were sceptical about whether the shocks were real)
  5. unethical = deceived the participants, not protected from self-harm
• perry divided Milgram's participants into 'doubters' (who believed the shocks were fake) and 'believers' (who believed the shocks were real) and found that the 'believers' were actually less likely to obey.
• counter argument on how Milgram's study lacks internal validity:

  • a similar study was conducted where real electric shocks were given to a puppy. Despite the real shocks, 54% of the male student participants and 100% of the females delivered what they thought was a fatal shock. This suggests that the effects of Milgram's study were genuine because people behaved the same way with real shocks
• counter argument on how Milgram's study is unethical:

  • Milgram did debrief participants and assured them that their behaviour was completely normal and they were made aware of the true aims of the study
• evaluating agency theory:

  1. ignores individual differences = some ppt seemed to enjoy administering shocks, suggesting they may have expressed sadistic impulses, also shown in Zimbardo's SPE where the guards were cruel.
  2. Milgram found that participants were more likely to obey when the researcher took more responsibility (removes moral strain)--> shift from the autonomous state to the agentic state
  3. Milgram found out that participants were more likely to obey when they were further away from the victim. (40% in the same room whereas 65% in the original study)
• evaluating legitimacy of authority:

  1. ignores individual differences as 35% of participants did not fully obey (personality traits)
  2. The idea that we obey when the authority figure appears legitimate is supported by Milgram's findings that participants are more likely to obey in a respected building like a University. Yale university (65%), run-down building (47.5%)
  3. The idea that we obey when the authority figure appears legitimate is supported by Milgram's findings that participants were more likely to obey when the authority figure wore a uniform. Everyday clothes (lower obedience)
• The process of social change from Minority influence:

  1. Draw attention = using marches, protests
  2. Consistency = be consistent in the message and overtime
  3. deeper processing = people start to think about the minority opinion
  4. augmentation principle = willing to take risks to show commitment
  5. snowball effect = the group slowly gains more authority and grows in numbers - becoming a majority and causing conformity and obedience to occur
  6. social Cryptoamnesia = many have no memory of how the change came about
• Pros of dispositional explanation for obedience (authoritarian personality):

  • Support from Elms and milgram --> obedient participants scored high on f-scale. Counter ==> Shows correlational so impossible to draw conclusions as there might be intervening variables involved
• Agentic state = when you obey orders of an authority figure and do not feel responsible for their actions

  Shifting responsibility to the authority figure through (Agentic shift):

  Autonomous state ---> agentic state
• What are the 5 situational explanations of obedience:

  • Legitimacy of authority
  • Proximity
  • uniform
  • location
  • agentic state
• Locus of control = refers to a person's perception of person control over their own behaviour
• Internal locus of control = the belief that we are responsible for what happens in our lives
• External locus of control = The belief that what happens in our life is caused by events outside of our control
• Social support = people will be more confident and will not fear rejection. likely to resist social influence
• autonomous state = do not have moral stain or binding factors which can lead to them having free will of their behaviours
• contradicting evidence against agentic state and legitimacy of authority.

  • Nurses were less likely to obey the doctor in injecting more drugs to a client even though the doctor is a higher status than them and is seemed legitimate
• Repeat the same message overtime = diachronic consistency

  Group members repeat the same message at the same time = Synchronic consistency
• Disadv for locus of control:

  • The relationship between LOC and resistance to social influence is correlational. There are other related factors that have been suggested as being involved in resistance such as social status, social anxiety and sense of personality
• Zimbardos findings = Meant to last 2 weeks, lasted 6 days
• Obedience = A type of social influence whereby somebody acts in response to a direct order from a perceived authoritative figure