Social Influence (Complete)

Conformity
1. Explanations
  1. Normative Social Influence
    1. Desire to be liked
  2. Informational Social Influence
    1. Desire to be right
2. Types
  1. Complience
    1. Conform publicly but disagrees privately
  2. Internalisation
    1. Views of a group are taken on at a deep and personal level
3. Sherif (1935)
  1. Laboratory experiment
  2. Autokinetic effect
  3. Group converged to common estimate
  4. In an ambiguous situation informational social influence causes conformity
4. Asch (1951)
  1. Line judgement task
  2. Laboratory experiment
  3. Seven confederates
  4. 32% conformed for each trial
  5. 75% conformed on at least one trial
  6. Normative social influence caused conformity
5. Evaluation of Sherif and Asch
  1. Lack ecological validity
    1. Cannot be applied to other settings
  2. Lack population validity
    1. Cannot be generalised
  3. Reliable
  4. Sherif's study lack internal validity to due natural of the task whereas Asch's was internally valid
6. Variations of Asch
  1. Group Size
    1. Conformity increase with the group size but only to four people
  2. Non-conforming role model
    1. One NCRM reduces conformity by 80%
  3. Difficulty of task
    1. Conformity increased with the difficulty of task
  4. Giving answers in private
    1. Conformity dropped when answers given in private
7. Zimbardo (1974)
  1. 24 male students from Stanford University
    1. Volunteer
    2. Random allocation
  2. Guards given uniform (authority)
  3. Called off after 6 days
    1. Guards dehumanised
  4. Conformed to social roles
    1. Deindividuation of guards
8. Evaluation of Zimbardo
  1. Strengths
    1. Some ecological validity
    2. Collection of data
  2. Limitations
    1. Unrepresentative
    2. Lacks ecological validity
  3. Ethical Issues
    1. Informed consent
    2. Deception
    3. Right to withdraw
    4. Protection from harm
9. Type of social influence involving a change in belief or behaviour in order to fit in with a group
Obedience
1. Complying with an order from another person who has more power/authority
2. Real Life Examples of the Dangers of Obedience
  1. Mai Lai Massacre
    1. Vietnam War
      1. March 1968
        Hideout for North Vietnamese soliders
    2. On Calley's orders the soldiers fired at hundreds of inarmed civilians
      1. Calley was merely taking orders from his superiors and bore no direct responsibility for the massacre
  2. Abu Ghraib
    1. 2004
    2. Physical, psychological and sexual abuse
      1. Photos emerged
      2. Committed by military police personnel of US Army
    3. Instructed by persons in higher rank
3. Milgram (1974)
  1. Tested the 'Germans are different' hypothesis
    1. Character deficit - ready to obey people in authority
  2. Volunteer
    1. 40 male participants
  3. Shock generator
    1. Participants were 'teachers' and confederates were 'learners'
      1. Incorrect answers from the learner resulted in en electric shock
        If the teacher refused to give these shocks, the experimenter would use a sequence of standardised prods
        If Prod 4 was disobeyed, the experiment was terminated
  4. Found that 100% of participants shocked to 300 volts and 65% shocked to 450 volts
4. Variations of Milgram
  1. Legitimate authority
    1. Lack of uniform and change of location reduces obedience
  2. Two-teacher condition
    1. 92.5% shocked up to 450 volts when they could instruct a confederate to press switches
  3. Touch proximity
    1. Obedience fell by 30% when the teacher had to press the learners' hand to a shock plate
  4. Social Support
    1. Presence of confederates who disobeyed reduced obedience to 10%
  5. Absent experimenter
    1. Obedience fell to 20.5%
5. Evaluation of Milgram
  1. Lacks experimental validity as participants wouldn't have believed they were administering real shocks
    1. 70% of participants believed they were administering real shocks
  2. Unethical
    1. No ethical guidelines at the time
  3. Unrepresentative
    1. Replicated in other cultures
  4. No precautions to protect participants from harm
    1. A year later, 84% were glad they had taken part
    2. Couldn't have possibly known how distressed participants would become
  5. Deception
    1. Participants were debriefed after the study ended
  6. Lacks ecological validity
    1. Later studies support the ecological validity
6. Holfing et al (1966)
  1. 22 nurses
    1. Telephone call from a confederate 'Dr Smith'
  2. Giving patient 20mg of Astrofen (imaginary drug)
    1. Maximum dose of 10mg
  3. Most nurses said they would not obey such an order in reply to a questionnaire
    1. However 21 of the nurses complied without hesitation
  4. Rank and Jacobson (1977)
    1. Replicated Hofling's study
    2. Administer Valium (real drug) at 3 times recommended level
      1. Instruction from known doctor
        Able to consult with other nurses before administering
        2 out of 18 prepared the medication
Independent Behaviour
1. Individual doesn't respond to group norms. They see how others are behaving, but don't pay attention to this and are not influenced by it
2. Explanations for resisting pressures to conform
  1. Giving answers in private
  2. Non-conforming role model
  3. Size of group
3. Explanations for resisting pressures to obey
  1. Disobedient role model
  2. Legitimacy of authority
  3. Increasing sense of responsibility
  4. Time to think and find social support
4. Locus of control
  1. Sense of control people have over the successes, failures and events in their lives
    1. Those who have high internal locus of control are more likely to behave against group norms as they believe that their actions cause the consequences
  2. Evaluation
    1. Oliner and Oliner (1988)
      1. Two groups of non-Jewish people
        406 protected and rescued Jewish and 126 had not
        Those who rescued the Jews had internal locus of control
    2. Blass (1991)
      1. Meta-analysis
      2. Variations of Milgram's study
      3. Those with internal locus of control were more likely to act independently
    3. Social Desirability may occur as it is easy to work out which answer gave an internallocus of control
Social Change
1. When society adopts a new belief that then becomes widely accepted as the norm
2. Moscovici (1969)
  1. All female participants
    1. Placed in group of 4 participants and two confederates
  2. Shown 36 slides that were different shades of blue
    1. Asked to state colour outloud
  3. Two groups
    1. Group 1 - confederates were consistent and answered green for all slides
      1. Group 2 - confederates were inconsistent and answered green for 24 slides
        1.25% of trials resulted in participants answering green
      2. 32% agreed with minority at least once
        8.42% of trials resulted in participants answering green
  4. Minority influence must be consistant
3. Clark (1994)
  1. 270 college students
    1. Asked to play the role of jurors
  2. Summary of a court case from Twelve Angry Men
  3. Participants were persuaded most by consistent arguments
4. Minority group should be consistent, committed and flexible
5. Snowball effect
  1. More people conform to minority which creates a majority opinion
6. Social cryptoamnesia
  1. As ideas became more popular, the origins are forgotten

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Social Influence (Complete)

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	Created by Ruby Redford over 9 years ago