Social Influence

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  • Created by: CG24601
  • Created on: 12-05-19 12:08
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  • Social Influence
    • Conformity: types and explanations
      • Internalisation
        • complete acceptance of group norms
      • Identification
        • change of behaviour to fit in with a group we identify with
      • Compliance
        • going along publicly but no private change
      • Informational Social Influence (ISI)
        • conform to be right working on the assumption that others know better than us
        • research support: Lucas, more conformity to more difficult questions, especially when not confident
      • Normative Social Influence (NSI)
        • conform to be accepted or liked by group
        • individual differences - nAffiliators want to be liked more
        • NSI and ISI work together - dissenter may reduce power of both
          • Informational Social Influence (ISI)
            • conform to be right working on the assumption that others know better than us
            • research support: Lucas, more conformity to more difficult questions, especially when not confident
    • Conformity: Asch
      • Procedure
        • confederates deliberately give wrong answers to see whether participants conform
      • Findings
        • naive participants conform on 37% trials
        • 25% never conformed
      • Variations
        • Group size - no need for majority larger than 3
        • Unanimity - dissenter reduces conformity
        • Task difficulty - conformity increased when the task was harder
    • Conformity to social roles: Zimbardo
      • Procedure
        • mock prison, Stamford Uni, students randomly assigned guard or prisoner
          • random assignment increases validity
      • Findings
        • Guards became increasingly brutal
          • Play acting - roles based on media stereotypes: lack realism
          • dispositional influences - only a third of guards were brutal - a third were indifferent and a third sympathetic
        • Prisoners became increasingly withdrawn + depressed
          • Play acting - roles based on media stereotypes: lack realism
      • Conclusions
        • participants conformed to their roles
    • Obedience: Milgram
      • procedure
        • participants gave fake electric shocks to 'learner' in obedience to instructions from the 'experimenter'
          • low internal validity: participants may have noticed the shocks were fake and simply went along with the demands of the situation
          • replications with real shocks (on dogs) gave similar results
      • findings
        • 65% went all the way to 450V
        • all went up to 300V at least
        • many showed signs of anxiety
      • findings generalise to hospitals (Hofling et al.)
      • Supporting replication: Game of Death - 80% gave maximum shock and similar behaviour to Milgram
    • Obedience: Situational Variables
      • Location
        • obedience decreases to 47.5% in run-down office block
      • Proximity
        • obedience decreases to 40% when teacher could hear learner
        • decreases to 30% in touch proximity
      • Uniform
        • obedience decreases to 20% when experimenter is replaced by 'member of the public'
        • Bickman's field expt. milkman, security guard and jacket and tie guy
      • Cross-cultural replications support though all western cultures so don't generalise
      • Milgram controlled his variables extremely well
    • Obedience: Social-Psychological Factors
      • Agentic State
        • acting as an agent of another
        • autonomous state - free to act by ones conscience
        • Agentic shift - going from autonomy to agency
        • Binding factors - allow an individual to ignore the damaging effects of their obedience
        • Blass and Schmitt found people do really blame legitimate authority
        • does not explain disobedience in Milgram or the lack of moral strain in Hofling's
      • Legitimacy of Authority
        • created by hierarchical nature of society
        • destructive authority - problems arise i.e. Hitler
        • cultural differences - different societal structures and ways of raising children
    • Obedience: Dispositional Explanations
      • The Authoritarian Personality
        • Procedure
          • Adorno et al. uses F-Scale to study unconscious attitudes to racial groups
        • Findings
          • authoritarian personalities identify with the 'strong', look down on the 'weak' and have a fixed, black and white cognitive style
        • Origin
          • Harsh parenting resulting in displaced hostility
        • Features
          • extreme respect and obedience to authority
        • Some of Milgram's participants had this kind of personality
        • Does not explain obedience across a country (the Germans at Jews) - better explanation: social identity theory
        • right-wing bias, ignores left-wing authoritarians
    • Resistance to Social Influence
      • Social Support
        • Conformity - reduced by presence of dissenter
        • Obedience - decreases in presence of disobedient peer who acts as a model
        • Allen and Levine glasses guy Asch repeat - conformity decreases even when dissenter not credible
        • Gamson et al. conformity decreases when disobedient role-models are present
      • Locus of Control
        • people with high internal LoC more likely to resist
        • Holland - internals less likely to obey in Milgram-type study
        • Contradictory research Twenge - we're becoming more external and more resistant - we'd expect internal
    • Minority Influence
      • Flexibility
        • convincing if they accept some counter-arguments
      • Commitment
        • augmentation principle - personal sacrifices show commitment and attract attention
      • Process
        • make majority think more deeply
        • Snowball effect - gathers momentum until becomes majority
      • Consistency
        • maintains view, attracts attention of majority over time
      • Moscovici's green-blue slides
      • minority views have longer effect as they are deeply processed
      • artificial tasks
  • Social Influence and Social Change
    • special role of minority influence
      • example - AA Civil Rights movement
      • only indirectly effective - results indirect and appear later
    • lessons from conformity research
      • NSI can lead to social change by drawing attention to what majority is doing
      • NSI valid explanation i.e. Nolan et al. reducing energy
    • lessons from obedience research
      • disobedient role models
      • gradual commitment leads to change

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