Social influence

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  Kelman(1985)- types of conformity (AO1)


  INTERNALISATION- when a person genuinely accepts the group norms, private as well as public changes opinions/behaviours.

  IDENTIFICATION- we value the groups opinions, public opinions change.

  COMPLIANCE- simply going along with others in public, not changing private opinion.
• explanations for conformity- A01

  argued two main reasons why people conform.

  INFORMATIONAL SOCIAL INFLUENCE- occurs when we are uncertain about behaviours which are right or wrong. So we are more likely to conform when we aren't comfortable that we are right.

  NORMATIVE SOCIAL INFLUENCE- when you conform to the groups norms to fit in.
• Research support - informational social influence (explanations for conformity A03)

  
  

  • lucus et al - asked students to give answers to mathematical problems that were easy or more difficult

  • There was a greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult rather than they are easy
• Individual differences in normative SI (explanations of conformity A03)

  • nAffiliators (those who have a greater need for relationships with people) are more likely to be effected by NSI
  • The desire to be liked underlies conformity for some people more than others, therefore individual differences make an impact
• Research support - normative SI (explanations of conformity A03)

  • Asch(1951) found that many of his participants went along with a wrong answer because other people did. participants said they were self conscious giving the correct answer as they were afraid of disapproval
  • When repeated study when he got participants to write down answers instead of saying out, conformity rates fell to 12.5%
• Conformity: Asch’s research (A01)


  tested conformity by showing 123 american males two white cards at a time (one card had a standard line and the other had three comparison lines) one of the three lines was the same size as standard line.

  The participant was with 6/8 confederates.

  took part in 18 trials and on 12 occasions the confederate gave the wrong answer.
• Asch’s findings on conformity


  75% of participants conformed atleast once.

  when participants were interviewed why they conformed it was because they wanted to avoid rejection (NSI)
• Asch’s variations on conformity

  1-group size: having less people in a group reduces the need for conformity.

  2-unanimity: presence of an ally reduces conformity.

  3-task difficulty: ISI plays a greater role when task is harder. We look to others for guidance when we think we may be wrong (conformity increases)
• Asch evaluation-A03


  1-artifical situation and task= too trivial, therefore there wasn’t any need to not conform due to no consequences. Can’t generalise to every day situations; especially to those that have a consequence from conforming.

  2- gender bias/ cultural bias= androcentric, only done on men.. research suggests women may be more likely to conform. Only done on individualist cultures, those in a collectivist culture have higher conformity rates because they are more concerned About the groups needs= therefore results only apply to American men.
• Zimbardo‘s research on social roles, findings and conclusions (situation factors- A01)

  Used a mock prison ( emotional stable participants) and randomly assigned roles of guard or prisoner. Each role was treated the same way as they would be in real life- including uniforms strip searches, rules to follow and command.

  findings- guards became brutal and aggressive, enforcing rules and prisoners would snitch on each other and rebel after 2 days.

  conclusion- proves the power of the situation to influence people’s behaviours, the guards prisoners and researchers all conformed
• zimbardos prison study A03

  1-zimbardo also conformed to his role of chief- lack of validity due to researcher bias

  2-controlled environment- lack of distractions and extraneous variables- also controlled who took part, therefore reducing the role of individual differences on the experiment.

  3-demand characteristic- ‘role playing’, participants may of guessed at what was being researched and pretended to go along with it instead of acting how they would normally.
• Obedience: milgrams research

  40 male participants.

  a confederate was the “learner”

  the true participant was the “teacher”

  and an experimenter(confederate) in a white lab coat

  the teacher was told to give shocks to the leaner when given wrong answer or no answer to a learning task.

  when got to 300V the leaner pounded on the wall

  if teacher was unsure wether to carry on the experimenter gave prods such as “please go on”
• Obedience: milgrams findings

  100% went to 300v and 65% went to 450v

  all showed nervous and worried signs (eg biting nails and sweating)

  all participants were debriefed
• Milgrams A03


  Lacking ecological validity- task was done in lab, every day situation doesn’t require shocks given, therefore people may conform less in real life situations.

  participants believed that the shocks were real (due to there behaviours of sweating exc) therefore increasing the validity of the results
• Milgrams situational variable variety’s.

  proximity- when teacher and learner were in same room, obedience dropped too 40%. when experimenters instructions were over the phone, it dropped too 20%.

  Location- when moved to a basement instead of a fancy university, obedience dropped to 47%

  uniform- when the ‘experimenter’ wore everyday clothes instead of a lab coat, obedience dropped too 20%.
• Situational factor research- A03 for milgram


  bickman- got a confederate to wear either a suit, milkman outfit or security guard outfit and ask the public to do tasks such as pick up litter. People were twice as likely to obey the security guard outfit.

  supports milgrams conclusion on situational factors.
• Obedience- social-psychological (A01)

  agentic state- this is a state where people believe that they are acting for someone else, even if the actions are wrong they think it’s someone else’s responsibility.

  Autonomous state-where people believe that they are in charge of their own actions and therefore take responsibility for them.

  agentic shift- where someone changes from the autonomous state to the agentic state, often when obeying someone with authority.
• Obedience- social-psychological factors (A01)


  binding factors-aspects of the situation they just ignore the damaging effect to lesson their guilt. Such as pushing it onto the other person.

  Legitimacy of authority- some people have positions of authority because they have been entrusted by society with certain powers (eg. police)

  destructive obedience- we behave in cruel ways if the legitimacy of authority orders us to do something destructive.
• obedience- social-pyschological factors (A03)


  support:

  -Blass and Schmitt: showed a film of milgrams study to students and ask them to identify who they felt responsible for the harm to the learner- they said the “Experimenter” meaning they recognise that the role of authority does effect obedience.

  limitation:

  -hoflings research: in this study, nurses obeyed a doctors orders over the phone (21 out of 22), when they shouldn’t, earning legitimacy of authority does have control over obedience.
• Obedience- dispositional factors


  The authoritarian personality type- proposed by Adorno.

  He used the f-scale to measure the personality type Of white Americans, and their unconscious attitudes towards racial groups.

  Examples of the questions on the scale- ‘obedience and respect for authority is the most important for a child to learn’

  those who scored higher on the f scale were those who would be told they had authoritarian personality. They often identified with ‘strong’ people and had high levels of respect/ had distinctive stereotypes.
• characteristics and origins of authoritarian personality.


  .high respect for authority/strong thoughts on race an gender/believe we need a leader

  .the personality formed in childhood, due to strict parenting. Expected loyalty, high standards, and criticism of failures.

  .it caused resentment and hostility in the child, therefore the child resulting to displacing their feelings onto those they see as weaker than them.
• Authoritarian personality type- f scale (A03)


  Weakness- low generalisability/low population validity/only done on white middle class Americans. other factors may be involved in explaining the correlation between authoritarian personality and obedience-such as education/situational

  Research support- elms and milgram found those who gave full 450volt shocks score higher than those who didn’t carry on. Obedient participants were also less close with father.

  Response bias/social desirability- those may answer the questions to which they believe is ’socially‘ expectable/ f-scale- not valid way
• Resistance to social influence (A01)


  social support- presence of other people who don’t conform, allows other people to feel more comfortable and also not conform/it can also help people to resist obedience.

  locus of control- proposed by rotter. Those with an internal LOC believe that things happen to them due to their own doings (such as doing well on a test because they studied hard) those with an external LOC believe things happen thaT isn’t under their control.

  Those with a high internal locus of control are more likely to resist to social influence (obedience and conformity)
• Resistance to social influence (A03)


  Holland- repeated milgrams baseline study and measured if those were internal or external (locus of control). 37% who didn’t carry on had an internal, 23% who didn’t carry on had an external, proving that resistance- increases validity of the LOC explanation for resistance to social influence.

  Asch- participants conformity decreased when they had social support who agreed with their response/ignoring the confederates wrong answers.
• Minority influence (A01)


  Minority influence leads to internalisation (public/private opinion changes)

  Moscovici- demonstrated minority influence- a group of 6 people viewed 36 blue coloured slides With different intensity’s, then asked to state whether the colour was blue or green. When the confederates were constant with their responses, the participants gave the same wrong answer on 8% of trials. 32% agreed atleast once. When the confederates were inconstant they agreement fell to 1%.

  consistency- overtime the consistency in the minority’s views increases the interest
• minority influence (A01)


  commitment- doing big/crazy things to grab the attention of the majority (augmentation principle)

  flexibility- nemeth argued that consistency may be aggravating to the majority, therefore the minority needs to be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable counter arguments.

  The process of change- hearing something new persuaded you to think about it over time the majority sides with the minority (the snowball effect)
• Minority influence (A03)


  research support-moscovicis study proved the need for consistency. As the consistent minority had a greater effect on changing opinions.

  Wood, conducted a meta analysis and found that the minorities that were seen as consistent had a bigger effect on the majority.

  artifical tasks of research- moscovicis study wasn’t realistic. It may be much harder for the minority to change the majority’s thoughts on situations such as politics, therefore it lacks external validity.
• Social change on social influence (A01)


  Minority influence has shown progression (eg civil rights movement); normative social influence can lead to social change by drawing attention to what the majority is doing (social norms); disobedient role models can show reverse effect of obedience and conformity as people might see the thrill of disobeying as something to conform to.
• social change (A03)


  Minority is indirect so doesn’t always have its effects; majority views are usually more deeper processed than minority; NSI is a valid explanation of social change.