AQA A Level Psychology

Social Influence
1. Conformity
  1. Types
    1. Compliance
      1. A public but not a private change in views
      2. e.g. saying you support a different football team because your friends do
    2. Kelman (1958)
    3. Internalisation
      1. A private and public change of views
      2. e.g. following a new religion
      3. Permanent
    4. Identification
      1. Temporary
      2. A change in private and public beliefs that stop when the group are no longer there
  2. Explanations
    1. Deutsch and Gerard (1955)
    2. Normative Social Influence
      1. Conforming to fit in with the group because they value the group and want to be accepted by them
      2. Public views match the group, but private views may not
      3. e.g. peer pressure
    3. Informational Social Influence
      1. People change their views and behaviour based on new information because they want to be right.
      2. Most common in new and ambiguous situations
  3. Asch (1956)
    1. An example of normative social influence
    2. 7 males were shown two cards and asked to match the line up to the same length line on the other card.
    3. The task was really simple and the correct answer was obvious
    4. Participants conformed 32% of the time, 74% conformed at least once.
    5. Variations
      1. 1 stooge - 3%, 2 stooges - 13%, 3-15 stooges 32%
      2. Unanimity - agreed with participant - 5.5%, disagreed with everyone - 9%
      3. Task difficulty - increased conformity.
    6. Evaluation
      1. Lack of ecological validity
      2. Lack of generalisability - all male students
      3. Reliable due to easy replication
      4. Participants said they doubted whether they'd understood the task
      5. Unethical - deception
  4. By-stander apathy
  5. Latane and Darley (1968)
    1. 75% singles reported within 2 minutes
    2. 13% in groups reported the smoke at all
  6. Zimbardo (1973) - Social Roles
    1. Stopped after 6 days instead of 2 weeks
      1. By day 6 they were completely submissive to the guards
      2. 1 released after 1 day, 2 released after 4 days
    2. Prisoners rebelled after two days
    3. Some prisoners became depressed and anxious
    4. Random assignment meant their conformity to social roles was not based on their personality
    5. Evaluation
      1. Ethics
        No protection from hard - guilt, distress, humiliation
        No lasting effects
        Zimbardo as the warden and researcher had issues
        Confidentiality - arrested from home
      2. Demand characteristics - lab experiment with someone saying they based their behaviour as a guard off of a TV programme
2. Obedience
  1. Milgram (1963)
    1. Mr Wallace, a confederate, was always the learner
    2. Psychologists thought only 1.2% would go to the full 450V
    3. 65% went to 450V, 100% went to 300V
    4. Milgram would say things like 'I take responsibility' and 'you have to continue'
    5. Evaluation
      1. 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
      2. Participants thought it was real
      3. Can generalise, when using women, the same level of obedience was found
      4. Hofling - nurses and the fake doctor shows real life application of the findings
      5. 84% said they were glad they took part, 74% said they learnt something important about themselves.
    6. Variations of Milgram's study
      1. Seedy offices 47.5%
      2. Teacher and learner in the same same room 40%
      3. Place hand on plate 30%
      4. Instructed by telephone 20.5%
    7. Mandell (1998) argues it provides an oversimplified explanation for holocaust behaviour
  2. Bickman (1974)
    1. Field experiment
    2. Security guard 38%
    3. Milkman 14%
    4. Civilian 19%
  3. Explanations for Obedience
    1. Legitimacy of authority
      1. We accept people have authority based on their social role, it is determined by society so that things run smoothly.
      2. Evaluation
        In Australia (Kilham and Mann (1974)
        Bickman (1974)

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AQA A Level Psychology

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	Created by Molly Walker over 7 years ago