AQA A Level Psychology

AQA A Level Psychology

1. Social Influence

   • Conformity
     • Types
       • Compliance
         • A public but not a private change in views
         • e.g. saying you support a different football team because your friends do
       • Kelman (1958)
       • Internalisation
         • A private and public change of views
         • e.g. following a new religion
         • Permanent
       • Identification
         • Temporary
         • A change in private and public beliefs that stop when the group are no longer there
     • Explanations
       • Deutsch and Gerard (1955)
       • Normative Social Influence
         • Conforming to fit in with the group because they value the group and want to be accepted by them
         • Public views match the group, but private views may not
         • e.g. peer pressure
       • Informational Social Influence
         • People change their views and behaviour based on new information because they want to be right.
         • Most common in new and ambiguous situations
     • Asch (1956)
       • An example of normative social influence
       • 7 males were shown two cards and asked to match the line up to the same length line on the other card.
       • The task was really simple and the correct answer was obvious
       • Participants conformed 32% of the time, 74% conformed at least once.
       • Variations
         • 1 stooge - 3%, 2 stooges - 13%, 3-15 stooges 32%
         • Unanimity - agreed with participant - 5.5%, disagreed with everyone - 9%
         • Task difficulty - increased conformity.
       • Evaluation
         • Lack of ecological validity
         • Lack of generalisability - all male students
         • Reliable due to easy replication
         • Participants said they doubted whether they'd understood the task
         • Unethical - deception
     • By-stander apathy
     • Latane and Darley (1968)
       • 75% singles reported within 2 minutes
       • 13% in groups reported the smoke at all
     • Zimbardo (1973) - Social Roles
       • Stopped after 6 days instead of 2 weeks
         • By day 6 they were completely submissive to the guards
         • 1 released after 1 day, 2 released after 4 days
       • Prisoners rebelled after two days
       • Some prisoners became depressed and anxious
       • Random assignment meant their conformity to social roles was not based on their personality
       • Evaluation
         • Ethics
           • No protection from hard - guilt, distress, humiliation
             • No lasting effects
             • Zimbardo as the warden and researcher had issues
           • Confidentiality - arrested from home
         • Demand characteristics - lab experiment with someone saying they based their behaviour as a guard off of a TV programme
   • Obedience
     • Milgram (1963)
       • Mr Wallace, a confederate, was always the learner
       • Psychologists thought only 1.2% would go to the full 450V
       • 65% went to 450V, 100% went to 300V
       • Milgram would say things like 'I take responsibility' and 'you have to continue'
       • Evaluation
         • Ethics
           • Protection from harm - seizures, sweats, laughing fits
             • A follow-up showed no lasting harm
           • Deception - they thought it was a memory test
             • They were fully debriefed
         • Participants thought it was real
         • Can generalise, when using women, the same level of obedience was found
         • Hofling - nurses and the fake doctor shows real life application of the findings
         • 84% said they were glad they took part, 74% said they learnt something important about themselves.
       • Variations of Milgram's study
         • Seedy offices 47.5%
         • Teacher and learner in the same same room 40%
         • Place hand on plate 30%
         • Instructed by telephone 20.5%
       • Mandell (1998) argues it provides an oversimplified explanation for holocaust behaviour
     • Bickman (1974)
       • Field experiment
       • Security guard 38%
       • Milkman 14%
       • Civilian 19%
     • Explanations for Obedience
       • Legitimacy of authority
         • We accept people have authority based on their social role, it is determined by society so that things run smoothly.
         • Evaluation
           • In Australia (Kilham and Mann (1974)
           • Bickman (1974)