Social Influence

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  • Created by: Robmason
  • Created on: 02-05-18 09:56

Zimbardo Prison Experiment Key Points

  • Wanted to see if people would conform to the assigned social roles
  • Male students from university (where the prison was also set up) were assigned roles as either a gaurd or a prisoner
  • Prisoners were arrested from home and given numbers, where as the gaurds wore reflective shades and uniform 
  • The guards quickly adapted to their roles. They punished the prisoners immiedietly and within two days the prisoners started to fight back . Some prisoners had to leave the study due to psychological harm
  • Gaurds kept conforming to their roles more and more and seemed to enjoy it 
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Evaluation of Zimbardo

  • Banuazizi said  that the participants were just acting out the roles they thought they had to perform. They were basing their perfomance on stereotypes. One Participant said that they were basing their charactor from a film.  Quantitive data gathered showed that 90% of conversations were actually about prison life, and one person said it was actually like a prison, accept run by psychologist rather than the goverment. On balance, the study has a high sence of ecologial validity as the situation did seem real to them.
  • Fromm accused Zimbardo of over exagerating the study and not taking into account personal dispositions. Overall, only 1/3 of the guards acted like this, the rest sypathised with the prisoners, and helped the by giving them cigarettes and privlages. This suggest that  overal, Zimbardos conclusion of having the results state that they were conforming to social roles may be overstated. The diffrenc ein gaurds shows they can exersise right or wrong choices.
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Key Points of Asch

  • To look into the effect of conformity. To see if people would conform due to NSI
  • The unknowing participant had to choose from 3 lines, which was the same as the test line. 
  • Group of 8, 7 were confederates. The confederates were told to say the wrong answer on purpous after a few rounds
  • 75% conformed at least once during the trials
  • They say they conformed due to avoid rejection 
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Asch Variations

  • Group size- Conformity rates stop increasing after 3 partisipants, and found that between the group size of 9 and 15, conformity actuallly drops
  • Unamity- With the presence of a dissenting confederaate meant conformity rates dropped by a quater. It enabled the nieve partisipant to act more independantly
  •  Task difficulty- Conformity increases when the task difficulty increases  
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Asch Evaluation

  • Perrin and Spencer repeated this study in the UK. One student confirmed within the 396 trials. This suggests that the study isn't consistent across times and situations, as in 1950's America was a particular conformist time. This limits his research due to it showing that it isn't an innate part of human behaviour.
  • The findings that Asch found cannot be applied very well. First of all, he only tested men, and since then they have found that women may be more conformist. Also, the study was conducted in America, an individualistic culture. In places like China, conformity rates will be higher, as they are a collectivist culture, so they conform to the group needs.
  • Being in an unnatural situation means the situation lacks ecological validity 
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Milgram key points

  • To see if people would obey unreasonable commands by someone with authority.
  • The real participant sat on the side to give the electric shocks to the "learner" (who was a confederate). There was an experimenter sat overviewing it (also a confederate) in a lab coat. The real participant (teacher) had to read words over the intercom to the learner, who when they answered wrong, would receive an electric shock ranging from 15 volts to 450. At 300 shocks, the learner would pound on the wall and not respond. If the teacher hesitated, they would be greeted with phrases such as "It is vital you continue" "You must continue" by the experimenter.
  • 26% went to 450 volts and 0% stopped before 350 volts, where the confederate banged on the wall. 
  • This study shows that ordinary people will obey orders by a believed authority figure, even if it goes against the moral guide 
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Milgram evaluations

  • The study has good external validity as Milgram argues that the relationship between the authority figure and the participant can be generalised to other situations. For example, a study by Hoffling had 21 out of 22 nurses administer a fatal dose of a drug as someone of whom they believed had authority had told them to. This means this study can be generalised to general situations in life.
  • Milgram's study was replicated on a tv show once, where the participant thought they were on a pilot of a new tv show. The presenter asked them to administer a (fake) shock to other participants who were actually actors. in confirmation of Milgram's original findings, 80% delivered maximum shocks. They also showed the same characteristics as Milgram's original participants, such as anxiety, nervous laughter and nail-biting. This shows that Milgram's study is correct in its findings and isn't a one-off chance 
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Obedience situational variables

  • Proximity-  when the participant and the learner were in the same room, conformity dropped to 40% for the baseline of 65%. Dropped to 30% when the teacher had to force the hand onto a plate to administer the shock.
  • Location- When the study was done in a run down building instead of fancy Yale University, then conformity dropped to 47.5 (from 65%). Showing Location has an impact on obedience 
  • When a member of the public was taking the experiment, in ordinary civilian clothing instead of the previous lab coat. Conformity dropped to 20%
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Obedience situational variables Evaluation

  • Other studys were conducted to see situational factors on obedience. A study was done where there were 3 confederates, one dressed as a security guard, one as a milkman and one in jacket and tie. They stood in the street and asked people to pick up litter. People were twice as likley to obey the one dressed in security than the one in a jacket an tie. Supports Milgrams variation of uniform.
  • Some say it lacks internal validity due to people being able to see through the deception. Especially when it was a member of the public doing it. Migram even agreed with this. It is a limitation as participants may have seen the deception and acted accordingly, not making the results 100% accurate. 
  • Milgram has conducted these variations in places like spain and australia. This in itself is a posative, however, these are western countries, and share similar values and culture to USA. So, it means the results cant be generalised everywhere. 
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Psychological factors of obedience

  • Agentic state- When a person becomes an agent of an authority figure and feels no personal responsibility for their actions as they belive they are just acting for authority. They may experience moral strain when they realise what they are doing wrong yet powerless to dissobey. 
  • Autonomous state- Independant/free. behaves to their own princibles and feels a sence of responsibility for their actions.
  • Agentic shift- From autonamacy to agentic. Milgram suggested this happens when we see someone we believe has authority. Usually when they seem to be high in the social hiararchy, we as social creatures tend to flock to them. 
  • Binding factors-  Aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore the or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduce the moral strain. Such as shifting the blame.
  • Legitimacy of authority- We give up some of our control t these people in high social power. This means they can exersise their authority properly. It may become destructive.
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Psychological factors of obedience Evaluation

  • When the Milgram study was showed to kids and asked who they they thought was in the wrong, the kids said the experimenter, not the participant. They blamed him because of his abuse of power via authority. This supports Milgrams theory of how LOA affects obedience.  
  • Agentic shift doesn't explain everything. It doesn't explain why some people didn't obey in the Milgram study, as humans are social beings in a social hierarchy and should theoretically obey. As in Hofflings nurse study, when thye handed over their willingness and responsibility to the doctor, they hsould have shown moral strain, yet they didn't. This means the agentic shift can't be used to explain it fully. 
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Minority Influence

  • A minority influence is when a minority influences a majority and changes their beliefs and behaviours. Leads to internalisation. 
  • Moscivici had a group of 6 judges the colour of some slides that were blue, just ranged in different tones, and 2 confederates (The minority) constantly said they were green (consistent). During this, people gave the same wrong answer at least once 32% of the time
  • When the minority were inconsistent in their answers (only said it was green 2/3 of the time) the rate of agreement to the minority fell considerably. This backs the point made that consistency is a key factor for a minority to influence the majority  
  • Flexibility is another key point for a minority to influence the majority. Nemeth argued that being too consistent can be seen as too rigid and unbending. This can be seen as off-putting and not cause any conversion. Instead, the minority should try to reason and adapt to what others say in order to allow conversion. Strike in-between consistency and flexibility 
  • Commitment helps too. Eg the suffragette movement, where the females did things like chain themselves to buildings and jump in front of horses  
  • The change is called conversion. By doing these three things then ti should make people process the meaning deeper, then that passes on to others. This is called the snowball effect 
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Minority Influence Evaluation

  • Moscovicis study into minority influence supports the consistency point that a consistent minority is better than an inconsistent, giving this theory more validity.  
  • The supporting studies such as Moscovicis lack external validity and do not explain how minorities attempt to change the majority in the real world. for example, things like political marketing. 
  • If we look back in history, with cases like the suffragette movement, we see a classic example of minority influence. Emily Pankhurst jumped in front of a horse race in order to prove her point. This is commitment. They were consistent in their message and now what they wanted to change is a normal accepted part of society. This real-life example adds validity to the study and backs it up.
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Social change

  • Minority influence affects social change. For example, the African/American movement.
  • Multiple marches showed consistency within the cause.
  • Because of this, people looked at this problem with a deeper meaning than before. 
  • Because of the augmentation principle, people again paid more attention to the problem. Freedom riders were getting beaten up on the bus. Therefore people had more admiration for them. Someone riding a bus for a cause would be seen as good but not as captivating to a majority as if the person was beaten up and still doing it. 
  • The snowball effect then takes place. It captivates more people and like a snowball builds up. In the example of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King gave a speech about it leading to a law passing that means people cant be discriminative.
  • You can cause social change via Normative social influence too. When people see that others are doing something and they think it is the norm, they will change their behaviour. 
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