A Level Psychology - Social Influence

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Flashcards on A Level Psychology - Social Influence, created by Czean Holgado on 26/04/2018.
Czean Holgado
Flashcards by Czean Holgado, updated more than 1 year ago
Czean Holgado
Created by Czean Holgado over 6 years ago
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Question Answer
What is conformity? -change in behaviour/opinion of a person due to pressure from another person(s)
What is internalisation? -accepting someone else's view because we view it as being correct -this leads to permanent change in behaviour, even if the group is not present
What is identification? -changing opinion/behaviour because we want to fit in and be part of the group, even if we don't necessarily agree with the view
What is compliance? -when we go along with the majority view, but secretly disagree. -this lasts as long as the group is monitoring/pressuring us
What are the two explanations for conformity? -Normative Social Influence (NSI) -Informative Social Influence (ISI)
What is Normative Social Influence? -When we conform to the group in an attempt to 'fit in' or be viewed as 'normal'. We try to gain social status so we conform, not because we believe the opinion is right.
What is Informational Social Influence? -When we conform to a person/group, because we genuinely believe that their opinion is correct, which may lead to Internalisation. -it is not about gaining social status, but the need to be right
Briefly describe an example of research for ISI Lucas et al. (2006) - students given mathematical problems, found that there was greater conformity to incorrect answers when the question was more difficult. Shows that we conform in situations when we don't know the answer.
Explain one problem with NSI -the desire to be liked is different for every person, so some people may less affected by NSI (such as nAffiliators)
Describe Asch's experiment procedure -Lines showed on screen, ppts asked which lines are same length. -Confederates deliberately gave the wrong answer after a few questions. (6-8 confederates in each group) -there was one naïve participant in each group (person being tested for conformity)
What did Asch find? -ppt. gave wrong answer 36.88 percent of the time -25 percent didn't conform once out of all trials -75 percent of people conformed at least once -ppts admitted conforming due to NSI
State Asch's variations of this experiment. -Group size - adding more confederates increased conformity, but more than 3 made no difference -Unamity - adding a confederate which always gave the right answer - decreased conformity Task difficulty - making the lines more or less the same - increased conformity
Evaluate Asch's study -Perrin and Spencer (1980) repeated his experiment - only one student conformed in 396 trials - contradicts Asch -Asch conducted the experiment in 1950s - highly conformist society at the time - may not apply to current society as it has changed - shows that Asch study not consistent across time -The task was artificial so it had low mundane realism, and ppts. may have been responding to demand characteristics as they knew they were in a research study. -Hard to generalise to real life as the groups did not resemble real groups we are part of in everyday life.
What does the term 'social roles' mean? -they are the parts that people play in social situations i.e with other people. It creates expectations for that role specifically - e.g being a doctor or a mother.
Describe Zimbardo's prison experiment. -Zimbardo set up a mock prison at Stanford Uni and randomly assigned roles of guards or prisoners to students. Students selected had to be deemed as 'emotionally stable', after being tested. Zimbardo wanted to find out people's conformity to social roles.
What did Zimbardo find? -guards took up their roles seriously after a slow start, and became a threat to prisoner's physical and psychological health - study had to be stopped after 6 days, instead of 14. -guards became more brutal and aggressive, and seemed to enjoy power over prisoners.
What did Zimbardo conclude from his findings? -Guards, prisoners and researchers all conformed to their roles within the prison, and even volunteers felt like they were in an actual prison rather than a study.
Evaluate Zimbardo's experiment -Participants randomly assigned to roles (no bias) which ruled out individuality differences and all had to be emotionally stable - high internal validity -Lack of realism - ppts. only acting and responding to what they think they should be doing based on stereotypes - not conforming to social roles -Many thought that the experiment was unethical.
What is obedience? -when an individual follows a direct order from a figure of authority
Describe Milgram's experiment procedure -40 male ppts recruited through newspaper -there was a learner, teacher, and experimenter - learner is the one being shocked, teacher is the one giving out shocks. -the learner is a confederate and is not actually being shocked -each time the learner gives the wrong answer they are 'shocked' in ascending voltage from the teacher (actual ppt.) -if the ppt refuses to shock the learner, the experimenter has to prod them with phrases like 'Please continue'.
What did Milgram find? -No ppts. stopped below 300V, 12.5 percent ppts stopped at 300V, 65 percent continued to highest voltage of 450V.
Evaluate Milgram's study -some argued that participants may have guessed they did not believe the shocks were real so they carried on (demand char.) -lacked internal validity -Experiment repeated by Gina Perry (2013) on dogs, showing same effects - shows that effects of Milgram's study can be generalised and were genuine. -had good external validity and relationship between ppt. and experimenter could be generalised to real life relationships and how obedience operates in the real world.
What were Milgram's variations? Proximity - ppt and learner in same room - obedience dropped Location - building changed to run down place - obedience dropped Uniform - experimenter changed to member of public (less authority) led to lowest obedience rate of 20%. (some thought this could have easily been worked out by the ppt.
Give an example of researching replicating one of Milgram's variation. -Bickman (1974) - members of public asked to pick up litter by milkman, person in suit, and police officer - police officer twice as likely to be obeyed than person in suit.
What does the term 'agentic state' mean? -a mental state in which we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviours as we are acting as 'agents' for an authority figure. Milgram believed that Nazis were in the agentic state so could be more destructive.
What does the term ' autonomous state' mean? -acting freely based on own beliefs
Explain what agentic shift means. -going from being 'autonomous' to the 'agentic' state.
What is legitimacy of authority? -it an explanation of obedience, in which it suggests that we are more likely to obey those that we perceive as having 'authority' over us (someone more powerful)
Give example of research evidence supporting legitimacy of authority. -Blass and Schmitt (2001) - students shown video of Milgram's experiment, and asked to identify who was responsible for harm to learner. Students blamed the experimenter due to legitimacy of authority.
Explain why the agentic shift is a limited explanation -did not explain why some people did not obey -did not explain Hofling et al. findings.
What is the 'F' scale? -fascism scale used to measure authoritarian personality developed by Ardono et al. (19500
What is an authoritarian personality? -being susceptible/submissive to obeying people with authority and higher status.
What did Adorno find regarding the results of the 'F' scale? -those who scored high on the F scale showed more authoritarian characteristics and were more likely to disobey those with less authority
What was the origin of an authoritarian personality, according to Adorno? -he concluded that it may have resulted from harsh parenting as a child - i.e strict discipline, absolute loyalty, and extremely high standards and criticism of failings.
Why is Adorno's explanation of obedience limited? In pre-war Germany, all citizens showed obedient, racist and anti-Semitic behaviour, however, it is hard to believe that all of them had the same 'authoritarian' personality. Adorno's explanation cannot explain obedient behaviour in the majority of a country's population.
What is acquiescence bias? -When people are simply answering, instead of reading the question, then answering based on what they believe is right, leading to wrong representations of their personality.
What is social support? The presence of other people that resist pressure of conformity, which also helps others to do the same.
What is resistance to social influence? -the ability to withstand social pressure to conform or obey authority - this is influenced by situational and dispositional factors.
What is Julian Rotter's concept of Locus of Control? (1966) -It is the idea that internals believe that they are directly responsible for what happens to them (internal LOC) and that externals believe that it is mainly a matter of luck or other forces (external LOC)
Which type of LOC is more likely to withstand social pressure to conform? -Internal - as they believe that they are responsible for what happens to them so they are more independent.
Describe one example of research supporting resistance to conformity Allen and Levine (1971) found that conformity decreased when there was one dissenter in an Asch-type study - this happened when the dissenter had thick glasses and had vision problems - so clearly he was not in a position to judge correctly, but he was social support for naïve ppts.
What is minority influence? A form of social influence in which a minority of people e.g one person can persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours. This can lead to internalisation or conversion.
What are the three factors that can aid the effect of minority influence? Consistency, Commitment, Flexibility
What is Consistency? -it is when the minority are consistent with their beliefs over time, which draws attention to the minority e.g Moscovici et al's experiment showed that those with consistent opinions were more influential.
What is Commitment? -the minority showing dedication to their beliefs by making personal sacrifices - e.g the Suffragettes.
What is Flexibility? -it is when the minority influence is more effective if they accept compromise or listen to other people's reasoning.
What are the problems arising with research evidence supporting Minority Influence? -Studies like Asch and Moscovi lack external validity as the tasks were quite artificial.
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