social influence

• Conformity


  A type of social influence
• Kelman's 3 types of conformity


  • Internalisation
  • Identification
  • Compliance
• Internalisation


  Making the beliefs, values, attitude and behaviour of the group your own (the strongest type of conformity, and often occurs as a result of informational social influence)
• Identification


  Temporary/short term change of behaviour and beliefs only in the presence of a group (middle level)
• Compliance


  To follow other people's ideas/to go along with the group to gain their approval or avoid disapproval (lowest/weakest level of conformity)
• Informational Social Influence


  When someone conforms because they want to be right, so they look to others by copying or obeying them, to have the right answer in a situation when a person is uncertain or unsure
• Normative Social Influence


  When someone conforms because of a person's need to be accepted or have approval from a group drives compliance
• Normative Social Influence


  Evidence supporting link between NSI and bullying
• Informational Social Influence


  Evidence supporting role of ISI - conformity to an obviously incorrect maths answer was greater when the question was more difficult and the participant rated their own maths ability unfavourably
• NSI and ISI may not be completely exclusive, as suggested by psychologists 'Two Process Model'
• Variables affecting conformity


  • Group size
  • Unanimity
  • Task difficulty
• Asch's line study


  • Participants 123 male American undergraduates in groups of 6; consisting of 1 true participant and 5 confederates
  • Aim: To investigate conformity and majority influence
  • Findings: 37% conformed, 25% never conformed, 75% conformed at least once
• Group size


  A person is more likely to conform if all members of the group are in agreement and give the same answer, because it will increase their confidence in correctness of the group, and decrease their confidence in their own answer
• Unanimity of majority


  The more unanimous the group is, the more confidence the participant will have that they are all correct, and therefore the participant's answer is more likely to be incorrect
• Task Difficulty


  When the task is difficult, we are more uncertain of our answer so we look to others for confirmation
• Lab experiment - Extraneous and confounding variables are strictly controlled, meaning that replication of the experiment is easy. Successful replication increases the reliability of the findings because it reduces the likelihood that the observed findings were a 'one-off'.
• The researchers breached the BPS ethical guideline of deception and consequently, the ability to give informed consent. However, the participants were debriefed.
• Supports normative social influence - participants reported that they conformed to fit in with the group, so it supports the idea of normative influence, which states that people conform to fit in when privately disagreeing with the majority.
• Lacks population validity due to sampling issues -the participants were only American males and so the study was subject to gender bias and cultural bias (beta bias)
• Lacks temporal (cold war) and ecological validity
• Procedure of Asch's line study

  1. Participants and confederates were presented with 4 lines; 3 comparison lines and 1 standard line

  2. They asked to state which of three lines was the same length as a stimulus line

  3. The real participant always answered last or second to last

  4. Confederates would give the same incorrect answer for 12 out of 18 trials

  5. Asch observed how often the participant would give the same incorrect answer as the confederates versus the correct answer
• Zimbardo's prison study


  • Participants 24 American male undergraduate students volunteers (were paid)
  • Aim: To investigate how readily people would conform to the social roles in a simulated environment, and specifically, to investigate why 'good people do bad things'
• Real life applications, changed the way US prisons are run e.g. young prisoners are no longer with adult prisoners to prevent the bad behaviour perpetuating.
• Lacks ecological validity, the participants knew that they were participating in a study and therefore may have changed their behaviour, either to please the experimenter (demand characteristic) or in response to being observed.
• Lacks population validity (collectivist cultures and females may act differently)
• Ethical issues: Lack of fully informed consent due to the deception required to (theoretically) avoid demand characteristics. Psychological harm – Participants were not protected from stress, anxiety, emotional distress and embarrassment
• Procedure of Zimbardo's prison study

  1. They were randomly issued one of two roles; guard or prisoner

  2. Both prisoners and guards had to wear uniforms

  3. Prisoners were only referred to by their assigned number

  4. Guards were given props like handcuffs and sunglasses

  5. No one was allowed to leave the simulated prison

  6. Guards worked eight hour shifts, while the others remained on call

  7. Prisoners were only allowed in the hallway which acted as their yard, and to the toilet

  8. The guards were allowed to control such behaviour, in order to emphasise their complete power over the prisoners

  9. No physical violence was permitted, in line with ethical guidelines and to prevent complete overruling
• Identification occurred very fast, as both the prisoners and guards adopted their new roles and played their part in a short amount of time, despite the apparent disparity between the two social roles.
• Guards began to harass and torment prisoners in harsh and aggressive ways – they later reported to have enjoyed doing so and relished in their new-found power and control.
• Prisoners would only talk about prison issues (forgetting about their previous real life), and snitch on other prisoners to the guards to please them.
• The guards became more demanding of obedience and assertiveness towards the prisoners while the prisoners become more submissive. This suggests that the respective social roles became increasingly internalised.
• Agentic state


  When a person believes that someone else will take responsibility for their own actions. When a person shifts from an autonomous state (state in which they will take responsibility for their own actions) to the agentic state, it is called an Agentic Shift.
• Legitimacy of authority


  Describes how credible the figure of authority is. People are more likely to obey them if they are seen as credible in terms of being morally right, and legitimate.
• Agentic state and legitimacy of authority theories

  Can be used to successfully explain several real-life examples of obedience towards destructive authority figures, such as the My Lai Massacres
• Situational factors found by Milgram


  • A person is more likely to obey someone wearing a uniform as it gives them a higher status and a greater sense of legitimacy
  • A person is more likely to obey someone in a location linked to higher status and legitimacy
  • A person is more likely to obey when they are less able to see the negative consequences of their actions and are in closer proximity to the authority figure
• Milgram's variations, and particularly the removal of a uniform as a situational variable, may have lacked validity i.e. they did not measure what they intended to measure.
• A review of the interview tapes found that a significant number of participants raised questions about the legitimacy of the electric shocks. However, quantitative data gathered by Milgram directly suggested that 70% of participants believed that the shocks were real
• Milgram's shock experiment


  • Participants Randomly selected participants - 40 male volunteers
  • Aim: To observe whether people would obey a figure of authority when told to harm another person
  • Procedure: A participant given the role of 'teacher' and a confederate given the role of 'learner'. Participant had to ask the confederate a series of questions. Whenever the confederate got the answer wrong, the participant had to give him an electric shock, even when no answer was given. The electric shocks incremented by 15 volts at a time, ranging from 300V to 450V, where 330V was marked as 'lethal'.
• Quantitative data gathered by Milgram directly suggested that 70% of participants believed that the shocks were real