Social Influence

Types of Conformity

• Internalisation - private and public acceptance of group norms
• Identification - change behaviour to be part of a group we identify with
• Compliance - go along with group publically but no private change

Explanations of Conformity

• Informational Social Influence - conform to be right; assume others know better than us
• Normative Social Influence - conform to be liked or accepted by group

Evaluation

• Research support for ISI - more conformity to incorrect maths answers when they were difficult
• Individual differences in NSI - affiliators want to be liked more
• ISI and NSI work together - dissenter may reduce power of ISI and NSI
• Research support for NSI

Asch's Research

• Confederates deliberately gave wrong answer to see if participant would conform
• Naive participants conformed on 36.8% of trials
• 25% never conformed
• Variations
  • Conformity increased up to group size of four
  • Dissenter reduced conformity
  • Conformity increased when task was harder

Evaluation

• Perrin + Spencer: found less conformity in 1980 than 1950s
• Artificial situation/task - demand characteristics meant participants just played along with trivial task
• Limited application - only conducted on American men
• Findings only apply to certain situations
• Ethical issues

Stanford Prison Experiment

• Mock prison with students randomly assigned as guards or prisoners
• Guards became increasingly brutal; prisoners increasingly withdrawn and depressed
• Participants conformed to their roles as guards or prisoners

Evaluation

• Control - random assignment to roles increased internal validity
• Lack of realism - participants were play-acting their roles according to media-derived stereotypes
• Dispositional influences - only 1/3 of guards were brutal so conclusions exaggerated
• Lack of research support
• Ethical issues

Milgram's Study

• Participants gave fake electric shocks to a 'learner' in obedience to instructions from the 'experimenter'
• 65% gave highest shock of 450v
• 100% gave shocks up to 300v
• Many showed signs of anxiety

Evaluation

• Low internal validity - participants realised shocks were fake; but replication with real shocks gave similar results
• Good internal validity - findings generalise to other situations, like hospital wards
• Supporting replication - 'Le Jeu de le Mort' found 80% gave maximum shocks, plus similar behaviour to Milgram's study
• Alternative explanation - social identity theory
• Ethical issues

Situational Variables

• Proximity - decreased to 40% when teacher could hear learner; 30% in touch-proximity
• Location - decreased to 47.5% when moved to run-down office block
• Uniform - decreased to 20% when 'member of the public' was experimenter

Evaluation

• Research support - Bickman's field study
• Lack of internal validity - some procedures contrived, so not genuine obedience
• Cross-cultural replications - support Milgram; but almost all studies in similar cultures to USA
• Control of variables in variations
• 'Obedience alibi'

Agentic State

• Agentic state - acting as agent of another
• Autonomous state - free to act according to conscience; switching between the two (agentic shift)
• Binding factors - allow individuals to ignore the damaging effects of their obedient behaviour

Evaluation

• Blass + Schmitt: people do blame legitimate authority for participant's behaviour
• Limited explanation - cannot explain why some disobeyed/lack of moral strain

Legitimacy of Authority

• Legitimacy of authority - created by hierarchical nature of society
• Destructive authority - problems arise, e.g. Hitler

Evaluation

• Cultural differences - different cultures reflect different social hierarchies

Authoritarian Personality

• Adorno et al used F-Scale to study unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
• People with authoritarian personalities identify with the 'strong' and have a fixed cognitive style
• Extreme respect for authority and obedience to it
• Harsh parenting creates hostility that cannot be expressed against parents so it is displaced

Evaluation

• Elms + Milgram: some of Milgram's obedient participants had authoritarian personalities
• Limited explanation - cannot explain increase in obedience across whole culture; better explanation is social identity theory
• Political bias - equates authoritarian personality with extreme right-wing ideology, and ignores extreme left-wing authoritarianism
• Methodological problems
• Correlation, not causation

Social Support

• Conformity - reduced by presence of dissenter from the group
• Obedience - decreases in presence of disobedient peer who acts as a model to follow

Evaluation

• Allen + Levine: conformitty decreases when one person dissents even if they are not credible
• Gamson et al: obedience drops when disobedient role models are present

Locus of Control

• Sense of what directs events in our lives
• Continuum - high internal one end, high external one other end
• People with high internal LOC are more able to resist pressures to conform/obey

Evaluation

• People have become more external + more disobedient recently

Minority Influence

• Consisitency - if the minority is consistent, this attracts the attention of the majority over time
• Commitment - augmentation principle, personal sacrifices show commitment + attract attention
• Flexibility - minority more convincing if they accept some counter-arguments
• Process of change - deeper processing + snowball effect

Evaluation

• Research support - Moscovici's 'blue-green slides' study
• Minority views have longer effects because they are deeply processed
• Artificial tasks - tasks often trivial so tell little about real-life influence
• Research support for internalisation
• Limited real-world application

Social Change

• Minority influence is powerful force for innovation and social change
• Minority: drawing attention, consistency, deeper processing, augmentation principle, snowball effect, social cryptoamnesia
• Conformity - NSI can lead to social change by drawing attention to what majority is doing
• Obedience - disobedient role models; gradual commitment is how obedience can lead to change

Evaluation

• Nolan et al (energy consumption): NSI is valid explanation of social change
• Indirectly effective - effects of minority influence are limited because they are indirect and appear later
• Deeper processing - majority views are processed more deeply than minority views, challenging central feature of minority influence
• Barriers to social change
• Methodological issues