Social influience

Subdecks (4)

Cards (35)

  • Social Influence is when a persons behaviour or attitude is influenced by other people/groups.
  • Compliance is when a person agrees in public, but privately they disagree.
  • Internalisation is the deepest level of conformity, when you both privately and publicly agree with the group view.
  • Identification is when a person conforms to the groups opinion because these is something about the group they value.
  • Normative social influence is when a person conforms to fit in with the group because they don't want to be left out.
  • Informational social influence is when a person conforms because they want to be right about something, so they conform to the opinions of those they believe hold more information than them.
  • Asch's line study

    1. Groups of 5-7 participants
    2. Asked to say out loud which lines were the same length as the comparison line
    3. Unknown to participants, only 1 real participant, rest were confederates hired to give the wrong answer
  • When the confederates all said the wrong answer, the participants conformed at least once 75% of the time
  • Asch's line study
    Limitation) Lacks ecological validity
    -> based on peoples perception of lines, doesn't reflect real life conformity.
    Limitation) Sampling bias
    -> Only tested men, cannot generalise results to women
    Strength) Carried out in laboratory
    -> Carefully controlled environment, extraneous variables.
  • Variables investigated by Asch
    1)Group Size: Curve-linear relationship where the size of the group affected conformity levels but only until a certain level (3 confeds).
    2)Unanimity: Introduced another confed which disagreed with the unanimous decision. The participant conformed less in the presence of the dissenter.
    3)Task Difficulty: The line task became harder, participants looked to the others for the right answer.
  • Stanford prison experiment

    • 21 men, tested to be emotionally stable, were given randomly the role of 'prisoner' or 'guard'
    • Prisoners wore a loose smock, hat and were referred to as a number
    • Guards given tools and uniform
    • This caused a lack of personally identity called de-individualisation
    • Zimbardo did this so the participants were more likely to conform to their social role
  • Findings of the Stanford prison experiment

    • The guards treated the prisoners very harshly
    • The prisoners became emotionally disturbed
    • 1 participant had to leave early
  • Stanford prison experiment
    Limitation)Lack of realism
    -> Guards said they were acting like a character in a show they watched. Suggests that they weren't conforming to social roles but merely "play-acting".
    Limitation)Lacks population validity
    ->Only used male students, cannot generalise results to women.
    Strength) Control over key varaibles.
    ->Participants tested as emotionally stable and randomly assigned roles. Researches ruled out individual personality differences as an explanation for the findings.