Psychology - Social Influence

• Internalisation;
  • Genuinly accepting group norms
  • opinion changes in private as well as public
  • More likely to be permenant
  • Become part of how the person thinks
• Identification;
  • When we identify with a group we value we want to be part of it
  • Publically change our opinions/behaviour though we don't privately
• Compliance;
  • Involves 'going along with others' in public but privately disagreeing
  • Results in superficial change and stops when pressure ceases

• Informational Social Influence;
  • About information - desire to be right
  • When uncertain, go along with others because they are probably right
  • Cognitive process
  • Occurs in ambiguous situations when answer is unclear
  • May happen when decisions need to be made quickly, or when one person is regarded as more expert
• Normative Social Influence;
  
  • about norms - a desire to behave like others and not look foolish
  • Emotional rather than cognitive process - prefer social approval rather than rejective
  • Occurs in unformiliar situations and with people you know - people concerned about social approval of friends
  • More pronounced in stressful situations where people may need social support

Strengths;

• ISI - research support, e.g. Lucas et al (2006) asked students to give answers to easy and hard maths questions, results showed more conformity to incorrect answers when questions were harder, people conform in situations where they don't know answer, we look to others and assume they know better
• NSI - research support, e.g. Asch (1951) asked participants to explain why they agreed with wrong answer, some said they felt self-conscious giving the right answer and were afraid of disapproval, when answers were written down, conformity fell to 12.5%, supports NSI

Weaknesses;

• ISI - Individual differences, Asch (1955) found that students were less conformist than other participants, Perrin & Spencer's also found less conformity in engineering students, people who are knowledgable and/or more confident are less influenced by the apparently right view of a majority, therefore differences
  

• 123 American male students tested individually with 6-8 confederates
• On each trial participant identified the line from a choice of 3 that matched a control line
• 1st few trials, confederates gave correct answers, then all started selected same wrong answers.
• Each participant had 18 trials, including 12 'critical' trials where confederates gave wrong answers

• Participants gave wrong answer 36.8% of the time
• Shows high levels of conformity, called ASCH EFFECT
• Considerable individual differences: 25% of participants never gave a wrong answer, so 75% conformed at least once
• Most participants said they conformed out of fear of rejection and continued to privately trust their own opinions

• Group size;
  • Asch varied the number of confederates from 1-15
  • Found that above 3 confederates, hardly any difference in conformity levels
• Unanimity;
  • Introduced a confederate who also gave a different answer to the majority, however not always the correct answer, but a different wrong answer
  • Presence of dissenting confederate lower conformity rates as allowed the participant to feel less foolish or like an outsider to the rest of the group
  • Allowed more independent behaviour from participant
• Task Difficulty;
  • Increased the difficulty of the task by making the options more similar and therefore more difficult to decide
  • Conformity increased when the task became more difficult as the situation became more ambiguous and therefore we are more likely to believe other people are right

Weaknesses;

• Temporal Validity - Perrin & Spencer (1980) found just one conforming response in 396 trials (engineering students), also 1950's were a conformist time in America and therefore people may be less likely to conform in more recent times, the Asch effect is not consistant over time
• Task was artificial - participants knew they were in a study so may have demand characteristics, line task was trivial and no reason not to conform, groups unsimilar to everyday life, findings therefore do not generalise to everyday situations
• Findings only apply to certain situations - participants answered out loud with a group of strangers they wanted to impress, Williams and Sogon (1984) found conformity higher in group of friends, therefore asch affect depends on circumstances

• Set up mock prison in basement of a university psychology department
• Test whether brutality of prison gaurds was to do with situation
• 24 'emotionally stable' students were assigned random roles as either gaurd or prisoner
• Realisim increased by prisoners being arrested at home and taken to prisoner where they are given uniform and number
• Heavily regulated routines with 3 gaurds at a time enforcing 16 rules
• De-individualisation - no names used only numbers, gaurds had their own outfits with handcuffs and keys etc, told they had complete power over the prisoners (e.g. when they could go to the tiolet)

• Within 2 days prisoners started rebelling against treatment (ripped uniforms, shouted and swore at gaurds, who retailated with fire extinguishers)
• Gaurds harrassed prisoners constanstly by conducting frequent headcounts in the middle of the night
• Highlighted differences in social roles by taking opportunities to punish gaurds
• Gaurds took roles with enthusiasm - damaging prisoners physical and mental health
• After rebellion prisoners became depressed and anxious, 3 sent home early after showing signs of psychological disturbance
• Study stopped after 6 days instead of planned 8
• The simulation revealed power of the situation to influence people's behaviour - the more gaurds identified with the roles the more brutal they became towards prisoners

Strengths;

• Some control over variables - emotionally stable participants selected, and roles randomly assigned, roles were by chance so behaviour was due to pressure of situation not personalities, control increases internal validity, so drawing conclusions can be more confidently done

Weaknesses;

• Lack of realism - Banuazizi & Mohavedi (1975) suggest participants were play-acting, performances reflected stereotypes, one gaurd based role on character from Cool Hand Luke, prisoners rioted because they thought that's what prisoners do, Zimbardo's data showed 90% of prisoners conversations were about prison life, meaning simulation seemed real to them, increasing the study's internal validity
• Major ethical issues - Zimbardo played role of prison superintendent, when a student wanted to leave the study Zimbardo repsonded as a superintendent worried about prisoners running from his prison rather than as a researcher, meaning that his ability to protect his participents from harm was limited

• 40 male participents reqruited through newspaper ads and postal flyers, all aged between 20 and 50 in a range of jobs, all paid
• drew roles from a hat, although confederate always was the learner, and participents were the teacher
• An experimenter (also a confederate) wore a lab coat and told participents they could leave at any time
• Learner was strapped into a chair in another room and wired with electrodes
• Teacher gave the learner increasingly high voltage shocks for every wrong answer they gave
• Shocks started at 15 volts and rose to 450 volts (at 300 volts learner pounded on wall but gave no response to next question)
• If the teacher felt unsure about continuing the experimenter gave prods like "please continue", "it's essential you continue" and "you have no other choice, you must go on"

• No participant stopped below 300 volts, 5 stopped and 300 volts and 65% continued all the way to 450 volts
• Observations showed participents had signs of extreme tension, many seen to sweat/tremble etc
• Participents were debriefed and assured that their behaviour was normal
• In a follow up questionnare 84% reported they felt glad to have participated

Strengths;

• Good external validity - Lab-based relationships between experimenter and participent reflected wider real-life authority relationships, Holfling et al (1966) found nurses were more obedient to unjustified demands from doctors (21/22 obeyed), therefore the processes of obedience in Milgram's study can be justified

Weaknesses;

• Lacked internal validity - Orne & Holland (1968) suggests participants had guessed that the shocks weren't real so obedience was not tested, However Sheridan & King (1972) participants gave real shocks to a puppy; 54% males and 100% females gave what they thought was a fatal shock, so obedience in milgram's study may be genuine
• Ethical Issues - Baumrind (1964) criticised Milgram's deceptions, participants believed the roles were allocated, they also believed the shocks were real, deception is a betrayal of trust that damages reputation of psychologists and their research, therefore may also make them less likely to volunteer for future research

Weaknesses;

• Explanation is limited - Millions of individuals in Germany displayed anti-sematic behvaiour but don't all have the same personality, seems unlikely that the whole of Germany, Social Identity Theory more realistic explanation (behaviour motivated by your social identity)
• F-scale is politically biased - Jahoda (1954) suggests f-scale aims to measure tendancy towards extreme right-wing ideology, but right and left wing authoritarianism both insist on complete obedience to political authority, Adorno's theory does not explain obedience to left-wing authoritarianism
• Much of the research uses correlations - Adorno measured many variables and found significant correlations between them, no matter how strong a correlation is there is no evidence that there is direct causation, therefore can't claim that harsh parenting styles are a direct cause of authoritarian personality

• Group of 6 people viewed a set of 36 green-blue slides varying in intensity, then stated whether they were blue or green
• 3 conditions:
  • Confederates consistantly said the slides were green
  • Confederates were inconsistant about the colour of the slides
  • Control group - no confederates

• Consistant minority condition: participants gave the same wrong answer on 8.24% of the trials, 32% gave the same answer on at least one trial
• Incosistant minority condition: agreement fell to 1.25%
• Control group: participants wrongly identified colour 0.25% of the time

Strengths;

• Demonstrates the importance of consistancy - Moscovici found a consistant minority opinion had a greater affect on other people than inconsistant, Wood et al (1994) conducted a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that consistant minorities were most influential, which confirms that consistancy is a major factor in minority influence

Weaknesses;

• Research often involves artificial tasks - Moscivici's task was identifying the colour of a slide, not too close to minority issues, In jury-decision making and political-campaining, outcomes are vastly more important, therefore findings of research into minortity influence lack external validity
• Applications of research are limited - Studies make clear distinctions between minority and majority but real-life situations are more complicated, the difference is about more than just numbers, majorities usually have power and status, minority influence research rarely reflects the dynamics so findings may not apply to real life minority influence situations which exert a more powerful influence