Social Influence

• Asch found there was little conformity with only 2 confederates, but when he increased it to 3, conformity rose by 30%.
• Size of the majority is important but only up to a point.
• When the situation is ambiguous, a larger majority is needed to affect conformity 
• When there is a correct answer, only a few people are needed to get someone to conform

• In Asch's study, when the P had the support of a confederate, conformity went from 33% to 5.5%. 
• If someone gave a different answer to the P and the confederates, conformity dropped to 9%.
• Breaking the groups unamomous position was key in reducing conformity. 

• In a varriation of Asch's study, he made the lines more similar sizes, and conformity increased. 
• task difficulty is moderated by self-efficacy. 
• When self efficacy is high, participants remained more independant when completing difficult tasks. 
• Task dificulty ad indivivual differences are important when determining conformity. 

• Asch's study may be a child of its time - study took place when conformity in USA was very high. People were scared to go against the majority and coformity was high. Conformity is more likely if the percieved costs of not conforming are high. 
• Problems with determing the effects of group size -  there is only a limited range of majority sizes. No studies other than Asch's have used a majority size larger than 9, meaning we know very little about effects of larger majority sizes on conformity. 
• Independant behaiour rather than conforming - two thrids of the trails the P stuck to their original judgement dispite being faced with an overwelming majority. Asch's study demonstrated how P's stuck to what they believed in i.e. to show independant behaviour. 
• Cultural differences in conformity - there are higher levels of conformity in collectivist cultures (37%) than individualist cultures (31.2%) because it is viewed more favourably, as a form of social glue that binds communities together. 

Procedure: 

• mock prison was set up at Stanford university, california.
• Male volunteers were psychologically and physically screened and the 24 most stable were randomly assigned either to be a guard or a prisoner. 
• prisoners were given uniforms and an ID number, which the guards had to refer to them by 
• guards were given uniforms, whistles and wore reflective glasses (to prevent eye contact)

Findings: 

• guards grew increasingly abusive towards prisoners, making them do degrading tasks. 
• some guards volunteered to do extra hours without pay 
• participants at times forgot they were only acting 
• 5 prisoners were released early due to their extreme reactions (crying, anxiety) 
• Study was terminated after 6 days 
• Both guard and prisoner conformed to thie roles, guards became aggressive, prisoners became passive 

• Conformity to role is not automatic - not all guards were sadistic. There were a few good guards that did not degrade of harass prisoners, and even did small favours for them. This shows that the guards chose how to behave rather than blindly conforming to their social role. 
• The problem of demand characteristics - guards and prisoners behaviour was due to high demand characteristics of the experiment. When other students were presented with some details of the experiment, a vast majority correctly guessed the purpose of the experiment, meaning the participants of the experiment may have guessed them too. 
• Were these studies ethical? - Stanford university ethics comittee approved the experiment. However Zimbardo admitted the study should have been stopped earlier due to so many P's experiencing emotional distress. There were no lasting negative effects. 
• SPE and its relevance to Abu Ghraib - Abu Ghraib was a military prison in Iraq notorious for torture by US soldiers in 2003-04. Zimbardo believed they commited abuses as a result of situational factors that made abuse more likely such as lack of training, boredom and no accountability to higher authority. 

Procedure: 

• 40 participants - told it was a study of how punishment affects learning 
• real participant was the teacher and the confederate was the learner 
• teacher had to test the learner on their ability to remember word pairs. Everytime they got one wrong they had to give an electric shock, which increased each time. 
• the learner gave mainly wrong answers and recieved the fake shocks in silence until 300 volts. 
• at 300 volts, the learner pounded on the wall 
• if the teacher asked to stop, the experimenter (another confederate) had a series of prods to keep them going. 

Findings: 

• all participants went to 300 volts 
• 65% carried on to maximum shock level, dispite the generator being labelled with 'danger' and '***' 
• only 5 people stopped at 300 volts 

• In the proximity variation, teacher and learner were in the same room
• obedience fell to 40% as the teacher could directly see the learners discomfort. 
• in the touch proximity variation, the teacher had to force the learner to toich a shock plate, and obedience dropped to 30%. 
• when the experimenter left the room, only 21% carried on to the maximum shock level, and some only gave the weakest level of shock dispite telling the experimenter they were following correct procedure. 

• the studies were conducted in a lab at Yale university 
• some participants said the location gave them confidence in the people conducting the study, and would not have shocked the learner if it was carried out somewhere else 
• milgram moved the study to a run down office, and obedience rates dropped slightly, but 48% still gave the maximum shock level. 

• a study was carried out where a female was dressed either as a police women, a business woman or a begger. 
• they asked random people to give money to a man who needed change for a parking meter. 
• in the police uniform 72% of people obeyed 
• as a buisness woman, 48% obeyed 
• as a begger 52% obeyed 
• afterwards, they people said they obeyed the police woman because she appeared to have authority 

• Ethical issues - milgram decieved his participants by not telling them the true purpose of the study, which meant they could not make an informed decision before giving consent. Although he claimed p's could leave at any time, the prods from the expermenter made it more difficult as they felt they had no choice but to continue. 
• internal validity, a lack of realism - participants in psycholgical studies have learned to distrust experimenters because they know the true purpose of the sudy may be disguised. When the learned was in pain, the experimenter raimed calm, and the p to think the learner was not really suffering. 
• individual differences - Milgram underestimated the importance of individual differences in obedience. It was assumed that women are more susceptible to social influnce than men, but females had the same rate of obedience as men did in milgram's study, suggesting there is little gender differences in obedience. 
• External validity, the obedience alibi - men of the reserve police battalion recieved orders to carry out mass killings of jews. Their commanding officer said that anyone who didnt feel up to this duty could be assigned other roles, however only a small minority took this offer, and the rest carried out their orders without protest. 

• when someone is in the agentic state, they see themselves as an agent for carrying out someone elses wishes
• they do not see themselves as responsible for their actions, they shift the responsibility onto someone else, usually an authority figure 
• people may adopt an agentic state is to maintain a positive self image. Because the action is no longer their responsibility, it no longer reflects their self image. 
• actions performed in the agentic state a virtually guilt free. 
• someone will stay in the agentic state due to binding factors, such as social etiquette. If the P was to break off the experiment, they may come across as rude or arrogant. 
• These feelings help bind a person to obedience. 

• For a person to move into the agentic state, they need the perception of a legitmate authority - someone percieved to be in a position of social control. 
• people expect their to be a socially controlling figure in most situations, and if someone fills the role of power, even if they do not hold any actual power, then they become the socially controlling figure. 
• People tend to accept definitions of a situation that are provided by a legitimate authority. 
• if an authority figure has harmful/destructive commands, for them to be percieved as legitimate they need to be within some sort of institutional structure e.g. military, university 

• the agentic state explanation and real life obedience - milgram said that people can shift in and out of the agentic state, however many studies have disproved this. In a study of german doctors working in Auschwitz, they changed from being concerned with the welfare of their patients, to carrying out vile and lethal experiments on helpless prisoners. Rather than the agentic state being responsible, the experience of carrying out acts of evil over a long time can change the way someone thinks and behaves. 
• agentic state or just cruel? - patricipants may have used the situation to express their sadistic impulses. SPE backs this up, as guards inflicted cruelty on prisoners dispite the fact no one was telling them to do so. 
• the legitimate authority explanation and real life obedience - there are both positive and negative consequences of obedience to legitimate authority. It can mean responding to a police officer in an emergency, or could be used to justify harming others, as they no longer feel thier own moral values are relevant as someone is deciding what is appropriate for them. 
• the agentic state and loss of personal control - agentic state is not only confined to obedience of authority. It suggests the reason for agentic shift is a reduction in someones experience of control. If someone feels they have less personal control they are more likely to obey authority, bystander apathy and greater compliance with behavioural requests. 

• a distinct personality pattern characterised by strict adherence to conventional values and a belief in absolute obedience or submission to authority. 

• F stands for fascist 
• used to measure different componants that made up the authoritarian personality 
• scale contained statments such as 'rules are there for people to follow not change' 
• people who scored high on the F scale tended to be raised by parents who had an authoritarian parenting style - including the use of physical punishment 
• if children grow up in a family with a strong emphasis on obedience, they aquire the same authoritarian attutides. 

• High RWA people possess three important personality characteristics that predispose them to obedience 
• conventionalism - an adherance to conventional norms and values 
• authoritarian aggression - aggressive feelings to people who violate these norms 
• authoritarian submission - uncritical submission to legitemate authorities 
• In a study where P's had to give themselves electric shocks, there was a high correlation between RWA scores and the level of shocks they were willing to give themselves. 
• at the end they were instructed to push a red button to give themselves an extra shock for not trying, but most did this without question whether they had high RWA scores or not

Procedure: 

• carried out a follow up study of Milgrams origial study using the same P's 
• they selected 20 obedient p's and 20 defiant p's 
• each completed MMPI and clifornia F scale to measure levels of authoritariansism 
• also asked open ended questions about the relationship with their parents as children, attitudes to experimenter and learner in original study

Findings: 

• found little difference on MMPI variables 
• obedient p's had higher levels of authoritarianism 
• obedient p's reported being less close with fathers during childhood 
• obedient p's saw authority figure in original study more admirable than the learner
• defiant p's did not display this 

• Research evidence for the authoritarianosm/obedience link - several studies show that authoritarian p's are more obedient in Milgram type situations. In a study where p's could see learners being shocked, there was still a clear correlation between high RWA scorers and maximum shocks administered. 
• The social context is more important - Milgram did not think the evidence for a dispositional basis to obedience was very strong. He believed that the specific social situations caused them to obey. 
• Differences between authoritarian and obedient P's - most obedient p's reported they had a good relationship to their parents rather than having grown up in an overly strict environment which is linked to authoritarian personality. It is unlikely that all the obedient p's in milgrams study would have grown up in such a harsh environment. 
• Education may determine authroritarianism and obedience - generally, less educated people are consistently more authoritarian than more educated people. Milgram also found p's with less education were more obedient. This suggests that lack of education can be responsible for both authoritarianism and obdience. 

• Asch found that the presence of social support allows people to resist conformity. 
• Social support breaks the unanimity of the majority 
• People are more likely to resist obeying when they have an ally to oppose the authority figure with them 
• disobedient peers act as role models 

• locus of control - persons perception of personal control over their own behaviour 
• internal locus of control - what happens to them is a consequence of thier own ability and effort, and display independence in their thought and behaviour. They rely less on others and can resis social influence better
• external locus of control - what happens to them is determined by external factors (e.g. luck). They feel that 'things jsut happen to them' and are out of their control. Approach things in a more passive way, and take less personal responsibility for their actions, and are more likely to accept the influence of others 
• characteristics of internals that resist social influnce :
  • active seekers of information that is useful to them and rely less on others opinions 
  • more achievement orientated and are more likely to be leaders than followers 
  • better at resisting coercion from others 

• Social support: the importanc of response order - when the confederate answers correctly first then it confirms the real p's own judgement and makes them commit to the correct response, rather than if the correct answer is said after the other wrong ones. 
• Locus of control is related to normative but not informational influence - significant correlation between locus of control and predisposition to normative social influence. Locus of control is not an important factor for informational influence. 
• locus of control: people are more external than they used to be - research suggests a historical trend in locus of control. Locus of control has become more external between 1960 and 2002 in young people. 
• Social support in the real world - a group of German women protrested for their jewish husbands to be set free from the Nazi secret police. They stood toe to toe with the police and eventually their husbands were set free. The presence of disoedient peers gave the others confidence to resist the authorities orders. 

• minority influence creates a conversion process 
• People want to understand the minorities position 
• when people convert to the minority opinion, it is deeper and longer lasting as they internalise the minorities point of view. 
• Minority needs to be consistent, committed and flexible in order to get people to switch to thier opinion.

• Consistency - At first the minority view is assumed to be wrong, however when they adopt a consistent approach others reassess the situation and reconsider the minority view. 
• Commitment - it is more difficult to dismiss a minority when they are comitted. It suggests certainty, confidence and courage. Joining the minority has a greater cost to an individual, so the more committed they are the more likely they are to persuade majority members to switch. 
• Flexibility - minorities are typically powerless comapred to the majority, and they must negotiate their position. a rigid minority can be seen as dogmatic, and a too flexible minority can be seen as inconsistent and neither will get people to switch to their opinion. Some degree of flexibility is most effective. 

Procedure:

Findings:

• Research support for flexibility - in a simulated jury situation, when the confederate but forward an alternative point of view and refused to change his position he had no effect on other group members. But another confederate who did compramise had an influence on the rest of the group, but only if they shifted late in negotiations, otherwise it is seen as caving in 
• the real 'value' of minority influence - when people are exposed to a minority opinion, they search for more information, consider more options and make better decisons. 
• Do we really process the minority message more? - the majority are more likely to create greater message processing. If the majority have a different view to our own, we must consider why this is the case, but do not waste time understanding why the minority has a different message.